Authorizing Yoga: The Pragmatics of Cultural Stewardship in the Digital Era

Abstract

The so-called Digital Age, many claim, is marked by a shift from a global economy based on material industry to one based on the manipulation of information/knowledge. Whether or not one agrees with this assessment, the increased realization of information/knowledge as a prime source of market value has led to a consequent growth in the reach of intellectual property (IP) rights and in the diversity of individual and cultural ownership claims considered possible. This expansion has sparked heated debates marked by a broad sense of crisis that the very foundations of culture, creativity, and even humanity, are increasingly subject to privatization.

This article explores a key issue in these debates by examining processes of appropriation with respect to intangible heritage and the consequent development of “stewardship” as an authoritative claim over future interpretations of culture-as-resource. The discussion focuses on the complexities of fashioning contemporary cultural stewardship claims with respect to South Asian classical medicine, generally, and yoga, specifically. I examine the emergence of a particular understanding of cultural stewardship that enables certain parties, such as the Indian state, to be identified as legitimate guardians of South Asian intangible heritage while others, such as private individuals, come to be labeled cultural pirates.

Keywords:

• Intellectual property
• intangible cultural heritage
• stewardship
• digital archives
• India

Acknowledgments

I thank Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Judith Farquhar, Josh Clark, Kris Fallon, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Financial support for this research was generously provided by the Law and Social Sciences and Cultural Anthropology programs of the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the Pacific Rim Research Program at the University of California's Office of the President.

Notes

1 TKDL employees, for the most part, tend to be associated and work primarily, if not exclusively, on one of the traditional medical systems documented within the archive.

2 In distinguishing between databases and archives, I suggest the former are systems for categorizing disembodied information that can be subject to query and reconfigured to generate new knowledge. Archives, by contrast, are particular orderings of content intended to be searchable by a targeted user-audience. Some digitization projects blend archival and database qualities, and the TKDL is one of these. For example, the current use of the archive by patent examiners searching the TKDL for proof of prior art in patent claim evaluation positions the project as more of an archive. By contrast, Sharma's proposal to use the TKDL imagines the storehouse as more similar to a database. Whether or not a database or an archive fulfills the intended function successfully, however, is a different, design-related question that is not addressed here.

3 Although it has failed to produce revenues, the benefit-sharing agreement between the San people, the South African government, and pharmaceutical companies over the use of the hoodia plant in weight loss supplements is considered to be one that is highly favorable to the indigenous community. In this agreement the San receive 6 percent of royalties (see Provisions 1.5 and 2.0, Benefit Sharing Agreement between the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa, and the South African San Council, March 2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Allison Fish

Allison Fish is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Davis, with the Innovating Communication in Scholarship (ICIS) program. She obtained a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Irvine, and a law degree from the University of Arizona. Her core research examines the cultural logics, legal forms, and technological infrastructures that guide knowledge management practices in varied settings.