Unpacking Frame Resonance: Professional and Experiential Expertise in Intellectual Property Rights Contention*

Abstract

In 2004, Canadian officials introduced amendments to the country's Plant Breeders' Rights Act. An intellectual property movement supported the changes and a farmers' rights movement opposed them. Though conditions seemed to favor the former, the latter was more successful. To explain this, I compare each movement's deployment of professional and experiential expertise in their framing attempts. I argue that professional expertise, acquired through formalized training, and experiential expertise, gained through lived experience, provide unique and important support in claims making; highly resonant frames are often those built and maintained with both. Indeed, the farmers' rights movement's use of professional and experiential expertise together in framing the amendments helps account for its efficacy against the intellectual property movement (which failed to do so). This analysis contributes to our understanding of frame resonance and highlights underexplored South-to-North channels of influence due to the particular role of Southerners' experiential expertise in this comparison.