The emergence of a hybrid mode of knowledge production in the Generation Challenge Programme Rice Research Network (GCP-RRN) in India: Exploring the concept of Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP)

Abstract

The Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) was an international agrarian knowledge-production programme created in 2003 by the CGIAR. GCP aims at developing drought tolerant varieties by reconciling upstream biotechnology based advanced research with the downstream development at the farmer's field. The objective of this paper is to apply the theory of Commons Based Peer Production (CBPP) to analyse the knowledge production process of GCP, especially the case of drought tolerant rice research network in Indian context (GCP-RRN). CBPP represents the theorisation of a mode of production that can be distinguished from market (private) and state (public) knowledge-production systems that was developed by observing the phenomena of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The organisational attributes of the CBPP mode applied in computer software production include the modulation of work, small-size granularity of components, and mechanisms that integrate these modules into an end product. Socio-economically, this form of production is based on cooperation, collaboration and collective action rather than property, contract and managerial hierarchies. This paper argues that GCP-RRN knowledge production is basically a hybridised one in which there are certain inclinations towards CBPP within certain larger context, and there are other attributes too that do not fall within CBPP theorisation. Further, this paper elaborates on the implications of this hybridised model for agrarian knowledge production discourse and institutions.