Rosemary Coombe
Professor
Canada Research Chair, Graduate Program Director of Anthropology
Programs: Law & Society (LASO), Socio-Legal Studies (SLST), and Social and Political Thought (SPTH)
Office: 2054C Vari Hall
Phone: 416 736 2100 Ext: 30157
Email: rcoombe@yorku.ca
Primary website: www.yorku.ca/rcoombe
Accepting New Graduate Students
Rosemary’s current work explores and problematizes the politics and social implications of cultural property laws, heritage, biocultural rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology, delineating how each intersects with neoliberalism, informational capital, and human rights, particularly in specific contemporary Latin American and Southeast Asian contexts.
Rosemary J. Coombe is a Tier One Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Culture (2001-2022) at York University in Toronto, where she teaches in the Department of Anthropology, the York and Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture, and the Graduate Program in Socio-Legal Studies. Prior to being awarded one of the country’s first Canada Research Chairs, she was Full Professor of Law at the University of Toronto.
Published widely in the fields of legal anthropology, cultural studies, and sociolegal studies, Rosemary holds a Doctorate of Science of Law (J.S.D.) from Stanford University, with a Minor in Anthropology, has published over thirty referred book chapters and over forty referred journal articles, and has delivered over two hundred and thirty conference lectures and papers. She has held research fellowships at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Utrecht and Gottingen Universities, and the American Bar Foundation and visitorships at the Universities of Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Iowa, American, De Paul, and Chicago. In spring 2018 she was the Visiting Professor at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia and the T.C. Bierne Visiting Fellow at the University of Queensland Law School in Australia.
Exploring the cultural, political, and social implications of intellectual property law, Rosemary’s current work explores and problematizes the politics of cultural property, heritage, biocultural rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology, delineating how each intersects with neoliberalism, informational capital and human rights, particularly in contemporary Andean Community and Southeast Asian contexts. Her larger project titled The Work of Culture in the Era of Informational Capital: Global Intellectual Property and Its Publics, explores how indigenist movements and NGOs increasingly mobilize culture as a resource by articulating and transforming international legal and policy norms locally and in transnational contexts. The volume explores how intellectual property rhetoric and legal vehicles combined with rights practices are used to protect cultural diversity, traditional knowledge, and cultural heritage. How and why has the advent of the information economy revitalized contemporary cultural claims, and to what extent can appeals for the protection of traditions serve progressive ends?
Her first book was a legal ethnography The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law (Duke University Press, published in 1998 and reprinted in 2008), exploring the different ways in which intellectual property law shapes cultural politics in consumer societies. It received a Law and Society Association Herbert Jacob Award Honorable Mention (second prize) for best new book in law and society scholarship in June 2000. In 2014 Rosemary co-edited with Darren Wershler and Martin Zeilinger the University of Toronto Press volume, Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online, whose over two dozen contributions, authored by scholars, practitioners and artists working in varied disciplines and genres, clarify the intersections between Canadian copyright law, digital technologies and practices of dynamic fair dealing, emphasizing emergent approaches to creating, circulating and managing digital cultural objects that challenge or present alternatives to traditional intellectual property and cultural policy paradigms.
Degrees
J.S.D./Ph.D. (Doctor of the Science of Law/Minor in Anthropology), Stanford UniversityJ.S.M. (Master of the Science of Law), Stanford University
LL.B. (With Great Distinction) Highest standing in graduating class, University of Western Ontario
B.A. (Honors) Anthropology/Political Science, University of Western Ontario
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
2001-2022 Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication, and Culture – York University. Tier One Chair (highest level position in Canada awarded by the federal government to “experienced individuals acknowledged by their peers as world leaders in their research fields.” Department of Social Science and Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. Appointed to second term, 2008. Appointed to third term, 2015.
2013-5 Adjunct Professor II, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Social Anthropology (appointed “to raise the theoretical level of ambition and increase the publication activities of the Department”).
2012 Visiting Fellow, Stanford University Centre for Archaeology and Human Rights.
2009-12 Inaugural Faculty Convenor and continuing Faculty Workshop Leader, Culture, Rights, Identity: Interfaces between the Humanities and the Law; Convergences: Law, Language and Culture, Synergies: Law, Language and Culture; Correlations: Law and Culture, International Summer School, Osnabruck University, Germany.
2011 Academic Fellow, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa.
2009 Visiting Scholar, “The Constituting of Cultural Property: Actors, Discourses, Contexts, Rules.” Research Group funded by the Deutsche Forschengsgemeinschaft, Institut für Kulturanthropologie, Georg-August-Universitat, Gottingen, Germany.
2008 Visiting Scholar, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Visiting Research Scholar, The Philosophy, Ethics and Social Theory Research Group, Wellington University, New Zealand.
2006 Wiarda Chair, Utrecht University, Netherlands.
2003-4 William Lyon Mackenzie King Chair of Canadian Studies – Harvard University, Department of Anthropology and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
2002-3 Visiting Scholar – Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1999-2000 Full Professor of Law -- Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.
1993-9 Associate Professor of Law -- Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.
1995-6 Visiting Professor, University of Chicago Humanities Institute.
Research Affiliate, American Bar Foundation.
1993 Weatherhead Resident Scholar -- School of American Research, Santa Fe, NM.
1990 Karl Loewenstein Fellowship in Political Science and Jurisprudence -- Amherst College, Massachusetts.
1988-93 Assistant Professor of Law -- University of Toronto.
Community Contributions
2019-20 Board of Directors, Society for Cultural Property (publishers of the International Journal of Cultural Property).
2016-18 Academic Board -- Argumentos. Estudios Transdisciplinares en Culturas Juridicas y Administracin de justicia (Arguments: Trans-disciplinary studies in legal cultures and administration of justice).
2012-21 Editorial Board – Stanford Studies in Human Rights series, Stanford University Press.
2010 -19 Editorial Board – Gottingen Studies in Cultural Property series, University of Gottingen Press.
2008-2022 Editorial Board – Political and Legal Anthropology Review (four terms).
2010-2 Editorial Board – American Anthropologist.
2008-12 Editorial Board – Lateral (Journal of the Cultural Studies Association).
Editorial Board – Copyright Journal, an online peer-reviewed journal.
2003-5 Advisory Board – Intellectual Property Rights and Archaeology Collaborative Research Proposal (National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Program).
1995-8 Editorial Advisory Board -- Law & Society Review, Journal of Sport & Social Issues
1992-7 Board of Directors -- Association for Political & Legal Anthropology (two terms)
1994-8 Associate Editor -- POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review
1993-6 Board of Trustees -- Law & Society Association
Research Interests
- Indigenous Comparative Approaches to Culture Based Tourism in Canada and Ecuador. SSHRC Connections Grant. Co-investigator. - 2017-9
- Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage. SSHRC Partnership Grant Notice of Intent Award. Co-investigator. - 2017
- Canada Foundation for Innovation Infrastructure Operating Funds Grant. - 2017
- See More…, Know More? Do More! Shaping and Sharing Canada’s Digital Media Heritage. Canadian Media Research Consortium. PI. - 2016
- Swidden Agriculture, Traditional Knowledge, and Biocultural Rights. Prospects for Marks Indicating Conditions of Origin in the Seven Sister States. Norwegian University of Science and Technology subgrant pursuant to The Cultural Logic of Facts and Figures grant. PI. - 2016
- Biocultural Diversity and Indigenous Governance in the Americas: A Case Study from Peru. Norwegian University of Science and Technology subgrant pursuant to The Cultural Logic of Facts and Figures grant. PI. - 2013
- The Cultural Logic of Facts and Figures: Objectification, Measurement and Standardization as Social Processes. Norwegian Research Council. Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Co-investigator. - 2012-5
- Vernacular, Customary and Conventional Laws for Protecting Cultural Heritage; Fragmentation or Pluralism in the Multiversity? PI and Conference Organizer. - 2012
- Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online. Canadian Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences Award for Scholarly Publications - 2012
- Canada Foundation for Innovation Operating Funds grant. - 2010-2
- The Politics of Scale: Mapping the Transnational Policy Field of Cultural Rights. SSHRC General Research Grant. PI. - 2010-3
- Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage: Culture, Theory, Practice, Policy, Ethics (IPinCH). SSHRC Multiple Collaborator Research Initiative ($2,500,000). Co-investigator. Winner of the SSHRC IMPACT Award, 2016. - 2008-15
- SSHRC Conference Grant. Taking Back the Streets: Global Carnival Cultures. Co-investigator. - 2008
- New Media Collaboration Centre: Canadian Arts Content Management Centre and Centre for Digital Policy and Cultural Rights Initiative. Canadian Foundation for Infrastructure Grant. Co-investigator. - 2007-10
- SSHRC Image Text Sound Technology Networking Grant. Creating an Ethos of Fair Dealing in Canadian Cultural Content Online. PI. - 2006-8
The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation and the Law. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998) 462 pp. Reprinted in 2008.
Archives and Cultural Legibility: Objects and Subjects of Neoliberal Heritage Technologies (with Eugenia Kisin). In Tord Larson et al. eds., Objectification and Standardisation: On the Limits and Effects of ritually fixing and measuring life (Ritual Studies Series, Carolina Academic Press), pp. 257-292.
Ownership of Intangibles: Intellectual Property and the Contested Commons (with S. Ali Malik). In Kamala Clarke, Eve Darien Smith, and Mariana Valverde, eds., Routledge Handbook on Law and Society. (London: Routledge), 203-208.
Aboriginal Community Research: Government and Neoliberal Self-Determination (with Daniel Huizenga). In Deborah Brock, ed., Re-making Normal: Governing the Social in Neoliberal Times (UBC Press), 109-132.
Frontiers of Cultural Property in the Global South. In Haidy Geismar & Jane Anderson, eds., Routledge Companion to Cultural Property (London: Routledge), 374-400
Rethinking the Work Of Geographical Indications in Asia: Addressing Hidden Geographies of Gendered Labour (with Ali Malik). In Irene Calboli & Ng-Loy Wee Loon, eds., Geographic Indications at the Crossroads of Trade and Development in Asia (Cambridge University Press), 87-121.
Neoliberalism, Heritage Regimes, and Cultural Rights (with Lindsay Weiss). In Lynn Meskell, ed., Global Heritage: A Reader (Wiley-Blackwell), 43-69.
The Limits of Heritage: Corporate Interests and Cultural Rights on Resource Frontiers (with Melissa Baird). In William Logan, Mairead Nic Craith & Ullrich Kockel eds., The Blackwell Companion to the New Heritage Studies (Wiley-Blackwell), 337-354.
Geographical Indications: The Promise, Perils and Politics of Protecting Place-Based Products
(with Sarah Ives and Daniel Huizenga). In Matthew David & Deborah Halbert eds., Sage Handbook on Intellectual Property (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications), 207-223.
Introducing Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Digital Culture. In Rosemary J. Coombe, Darren Wershler & Martin Zeilinger (eds.) Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online (University of Toronto Press), 3-43.
The Evolution of Cultural Heritage Ethics Via Human Rights Norms (with Nicole Aylwin). In Rosemary J. Coombe, Darren Wershler & Martin Zeilinger (eds.) Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online(University of Toronto Press), 201-212.
The Social Imaginary of Geographical Indicators in Contested Environments: The Politicized Heritage and the Racialized Landscapes of South African Rooibos Tea (with Sarah Ives and Daniel Huizenga). In Matthew David & Deborah Halbert eds., Sage Handbook on Intellectual Property (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications), 224-237.
Three Peters and an Obsession with Pierre in a 'Piece of Work': Intellectual Property in John Greyson's Un©ut (with Martin Zeilinger). In Brenda Longfellow, Scott MacKenzie & Tim Waugh, eds., The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson (McGill Queens University Press), 438-449.
Managing Cultural Heritage as Neoliberal Governmentality. In Heritage Regimes and the State. Regina Bendix, Aditya Eggert, Arnika Peselmann & Sven Mißling, eds. (Göttingen University Press), 375-389.
Cultural Agencies: The Legal Construction of Community Subjects and their Properties. In Mario Biagioli, Peter Jaszi, & Martha Woodmansee, eds., Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property (University of Chicago Press) 79-98.
Possessing Culture: Political Economies of Community Subjects and their Properties. In M. Busse & V. Strang, eds., Ownership and Appropriation (Berg Publishers) 105-127
2009 “A Broken Record: Subjecting ‘Music’ to Cultural Rights,” (with Elizabeth B. Coleman and Fiona MacAlrault) in James C. Young and Conrad Brunck, eds., Ethics of Cultural Appropriation (London: Blackwell) 179-210.
2009 “Digital Media and the Informational Politics of Appropriation,” (with David Meurer) in Atopia Projects, eds., Lifting: “Theft” in Art. (Aberdeen, UK: Peacock Visual Arts) 20-27.
2009 “First Nations’ Intangible Cultural Heritage Concerns: Prospects for Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions in International Law,” in Catherine Bell & Robert Paterson, eds., Protection of First Nations’ Cultural Heritage: Laws, Policy and Reform (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press) 247-277.
2009 “Indigenous Cultural Heritage Rights in International Human Rights Law” (with Mohsen al atar Ahmed and Nicole Aylwin) in Catherine Bell and Robert Paterson, eds., Protection of First Nations’ Cultural Heritage: Laws, Policy and Reform (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press) 311-342
Excerpts were published online for critique and commentary invited by Lifting, an online anthology created by Atopia Projects (2007) in conjunction with their curated exhibition of art Lifting: Theft in Art, Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, UK. 25 August – 29 September, 2007.
“Authorizing the Celebrity: Engendering Alternative Identities,” was reprinted as Chapter 40 in P. David Marshall, ed., The Celebrity Culture Reader (New York: Routledge, 2006).
2005 “Bearing Cultural Distinction: Informational Capital and New Expectations for Intellectual Property” (with Steven Schnoor and Mohsen al atar Ahmed) in J. Brinkhof and F. Willem Grosheide, eds., Articles in Intellectual Property: Crossing Boundaries (Antwerp: Intersentia) 191-211.
Reprinted in “Intellectual Property and Social Justice” Symposium Issue. University of California-Davis Law Review 40(3): 891-917 (2007).
“Making Music in the Soundscapes of the Law.” Foreword to Joanna Demers’ Musical Appropriation, Musical Meaning, and the Law (Athens: University of Georgia Press) i-xii.
2005 “Protecting Cultural Industries to Promote Cultural Diversity: Dilemmas for International Policy-making Posed by the Recognition of Traditional Knowledge” in K. Maskus and J. Reichman, eds., International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology Under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime (Cambridge University Press) 599-614.
Reprinted in V. V. Ramani and A. V. Bala Krishana, eds., Cultural Industries: Perspectives and Experiences (Hyderabad: ICfai University Press, 2008) 45-64.
“Objects of Politics and Subjects of Property” and “Authorizing the Celebrity Persona” were reprinted in Sally Falk Moore, ed., Anthropology and Law: A Reader (London: Basil Blackwell, 2005) pp. 113-123.
2004 “Commodity Culture, Private Censorship, Branded Environnments, and Global Trade Politics: Intellectual Property as a Topic of Law and Society Research” in Austin Sarat, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society (Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell) 369-391.
2003 “Works in Progress: Indigenous Knowledge, Biological Diversity and Intellectual Property in a Neoliberal Era” in Richard W. Perry and William Maurer, eds., Globalization Under Construction: Governmentality, Law and Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) 273-314.
2001 “Preserving Cultural Diversity through the Preservation of Biological Diversity: Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and the Role of Digital Technologies” in Tony Bennett, ed., Differing Diversities: Transversal Study on the Theme of Cultural Policy and Cultural Diversity (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing) 169-200.
1999 “Sports Trademarks and Somatic Politics: Locating the Law in a Critical Cultural Studies,” in Randy Martin & Toby Miller, eds., SportCult (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) 262-288.
• Reprinted in D. Goldberg, M. Musheno and L. Bower, eds., Between Law and Culture: Relocating Legal Studies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001) 22-49.
1998 “Contingent Articulations: A Critical Cultural Studies of Law,” in Austin Sarat and Tom Kearns, eds., Law in the Domain of Culture (University of Michigan Press) 21-64.
1997 “The Demonic Place of the Not-There: Trademark Rumors in the Imaginary Spaces of Postindustriality,” in James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta, eds., Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology (Durham: Duke University Press) 249-274.
2008 “Rethinking Creativity and Value,” Review of Johanna Gibson, Creating Selves: Intellectual Property and the Narration of Culture (Dartmouth: Ashgate, 2006). Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice 3 (12): 804.
2003 Review of Carol Greenhouse (with Roshanak Kheshti), Democracy and Ethnography (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998). American Ethnologist 30: 625-6.
Posthuman Rights Struggles and Environmentalisms from Below in the Political Ontologies of Colombia and Ecuador (with David J. Jefferson). Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 12 (2): 177-204.
Transforming the Work of Geographical Indications to Decolonize Racialized Labor and Support Agroecology (with Sajjid Ali Malik). 8 (3) UC Irvine Law Review 363-412 (special issue titled Intellectual Property and Human Rights).
The Knowledge Economy and its Cultures: Neoliberalism and Latin American Reterritorializations. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (3): 247-75 (special issue symposium titled Language and Political Economy Revisited).
Marks Indicating Conditions of Production in Rights-based Sustainable Development (with Nicole Aylwin). “Brand New Worlds” special issue. University of California Davis Law Review 47(3): 753-786.
Bordering Diversity and Desire: Using Intellectual Property to Mark Place-based Products (with Nicole Aylwin). Environment and Planning A: Society and Space43(9): 2027-2042.
What’s Feminist about Open Access? A Relational Approach to Copyright in the Academy (with Carys Craig and Joseph F. Turcotte). feminists@law: an open access journal of feminist legal scholarship 1(1): ISSN: 2046-9551. (http://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/feministsatlaw/issue/current)
Honing a Critical Cultural Study of Human Rights. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7 (3): 230-246.
“Intellectual Property Issues in Heritage Management Part 2: Legal Dimensions, Ethical Considerations, and Collaborative Research Practices,” Journal of Heritage Management (with George Nicholas, Catherine Bell, John Welch, Brian Noble, Jane Anderson, Kelly Bannister, and Joe Watkins). 3: 117-147.
“The Expanding Purview of Cultural Properties and their Politics.” Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences< 5: 393-412.
• Translated and reprinted as “Der zunehmende Geltungsbereich von Cultural Properties und ihrer Politik.” In: R. Bendix, K. Bizer, S. Groth, eds. Die Konstituierung von Cultural Property: Forschungsperspektiven. University of Göttingen Press, 2010
“Your Second Life? The Performativity of Intellectual Property in Online Games” (with Andrew Herman and Lewis Kaye). Cultural Studies 20 (2&3): 184-210.
• Reprinted in Pramod K. Nayar, ed., The New Media and Cybercultures Reader (Wiley Blackwell, 2010) 441-464.
“Legal Claims to Culture in and Against the Market: Neoliberalism and the Global Proliferation of Meaningful Difference” Law, Culture and Humanities 1(1): 32-55.
Reprinted in Eve Darien-Smith, ed., Ethnography and Law (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) 95-115.
“Protecting Traditional Environmental Knowledge and New Social Movements in the Americas: Intellectual Property, Human Right or Claims to an Alternative Form of Sustainable Development?” Florida Journal of International Law 17(1): 115-136.
“The Human Genome Diversity Project: The Politics of Patents at the Intersection of Race, Religion Research Ethics, and Human Rights” (with Bita Amani). 27 Law and Policy 27 (1): 152-188 (Special issue on Law, Technology and Development).
• Reprinted in William Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) 479-518.
“Rhetorical Virtues: Property, Speech and the Commons on the world-wide Web” (With Andrew Herman). Anthropology Quarterly 77: 559-574.
“Fear, Hope, and Longing for the Future of Authorship and a Revitalized Public Domain in Global Regimes of Intellectual Property.” De Paul Law Review 52: 171-1191.
“Culture Wars on the Net: Trademarks, Consumer Politics and Corporate Accountability on the World Wide Web.” South Atlantic Quarterly 100: 919 - 947 (co-authored with Andrew Herman). Special issue on “Culture and the Law” edited by Gaurav Desai.
• Reprinted in William T. Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) 579-608.
“The Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Traditional Knowledge in International Law.” St. Thomas Law Review 14: 275-285.
2000 “Trademarks, Property, and Propriety: The Moral Economy of Consumer Politics and Corporate Accountability on the World Wide Web.” De Paul Law Review 50: 597-632. (coauthored with Andrew Herman)
1999 “The Law and Late Modern Culture: Reflections on Between Facts and Norms from the Perspective of a Critical Cultural Legal Studies” (with Jonathan Cohen). Symposium Issue on Jurgen Habermas. University of Denver Law Review 76: 1029-1055.
1998 “Critical Cultural Legal Studies.” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 10: 463-486.
1998 “Intellectual Property, Human Rights, and Sovereignty: New Dilemmas in International Law Posed by the Recognition of Indigenous Knowledge and the Conservation of Biodiversity” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 6 (1): 59-115.
1997 “En/gendering and Identifying the Forms of Emergent Civil Societies: New Directions in Political Anthropology.” Guest-editor's introduction to a special issue on Civil Society in Postcolonial Contexts. PoLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review 20: 1-12.
1996 “Authorial Cartographies: Mapping Proprietary Borders in a Less Than Brave New World.” Stanford Law Review 48(5): 1357-1366.
1996 “Embodied Trademarks: Mimesis & Alterity on American Commercial Frontiers.” Cultural Anthropology 11(2): 202-224.
1996 “Left Out on the Information Highway.” Oregon Law Review 75: 237-247.
1995 “Marking Difference in American Commerce: Trademarks and Alterity at Century's Ends.” Canadian Journal of Law & Society 10(2): 109-128.
• Reprinted in POLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review 19(1): 105-116 (1996).
1995 “The Cultural Life of Things: Anthropological Approaches to Law and Society in Conditions of Globalization.” American University Journal of International Law and Policy 10(2): 91-836.
• Reprinted in Alexandra George, ed., Globalisation and Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays on Globalization and Law Series. Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2006) 590-610.
• Abbreviated version reprinted in Nicholas Blomley, David Delaney, and Richard T. Ford, eds., The Legal Geographies Reader (Oxford and Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell, 2001) 298-318.
1994 “Challenging Paternity: Histories of Copyright.” Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 6: 397-422.
1994 “X Marks the Spot: The Ambiguities of African Trading in the Commerce of the Black Public Sphere.” Public Culture: Society for Transnational Studies 7 (2): 249-274 (with Paul Stoller).
• Reprinted in The Public Sphere Collective, ed., The Black Public Sphere (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 253-278.
1993 “Cultural and Intellectual Property: Occupying the Colonial Imagination.” POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 16 (1): 8 - 16.
• Reprinted in P. Drahos, ed., Intellectual Property a volume in the International Library of Essays in Legal Thought and Legal Theory series (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing, 1999) 171-180.
1993 “Tactics of Appropriation and the Politics of Recognition in Late Modern Democracies.” Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy 21 (3): 411 - 433.
1993 “The Properties of Culture and the Politics of Possessing Identity: Native Claims in the Cultural Appropriation Controversy.” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 6 (2): 249 - 285.
• Reprinted in Elspeth Cameron ed., Multiculturalism & Immigration in Canada: An Introductory Reader (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2004) 133-158.
• Abbreviated version reprinted in Karen Engle and Dan Danielson, eds., After Identity: A Reader in Law and Culture (New York: Routledge, 1995) 251-272.
• Another abbreviation reprinted in Bruce Ziff, ed., Borrowed Power: Issues of Cultural Appropriation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997) 75-96.
• Abbreviated in Patty Girstenblith ed., Art, Cultural Heritage and the Law (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2004) 541-545 and in the Second Edition (2008) 596-99.
1992 “Author/izing the Celebrity: Publicity Rights, Postmodern Politics, and Unauthorized Genders.” Special issue titled “Intellectual Property and the Construction of Authorship.” Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal 10: 365 - 395.
• Reprinted in Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi, eds., The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriations in Law and Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994) 101 - 131.
• Reprinted in Peter Yu, ed., The Marketplace of Ideas: Twenty Years of the Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal (New York: Kluwer International, 2002) 236-266.
• Reprinted in W. Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Ashgate 2007) 519-550.
1992 “Publicity Rights and Political Aspiration: Mass Culture, Gender Identity and Democracy.” New England Law Review 26 (4): 1221-1280 (1992).
1992 “The Celebrity Image and Cultural Identity: Publicity Rights and the Subaltern Politics of Gender.” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media & Culture 14(3): 59 – 88 (1992).
• Reprinted in Toby Miller, ed., The Contemporary Hollywood Reader (Routledge 2009) 453-471.
1991 “Beyond Modernity's Meanings: Engaging the Postmodern in Cultural Anthropology.” Culture: Journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society 11(1): 111- 124.
1991 “Contesting the Self: Negotiating Subjectivities in Nineteenth Century Ontario Defamation Trials.” Studies in Law, Politics and Society 11: 3-40.
1991 “Encountering the Postmodern: New Directions in Cultural Anthropology.” Symposium issue titled “Cultural Studies in Canada: Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 28: 188-205.
1991 “Objects of Property and Subjects of Politics: Intellectual Property Laws and Democratic Dialogue.” Texas Law Review 69: 1853 - 1880.
• Reprinted in Dennis Patterson ed., Postmodernism and Law, in The International Library of Essays in Legal Theory (Dartmouth, 1993) 275-302.
• Reprinted in Alan Freeman and Elizabeth Mensch, eds., Essays in Property. Volume II (Dartmouth, 1992) 415-442.
• Abbreviated for inclusion in M. La France, G. Myers, and D. Lange, eds., Intellectual Property (West Publishing, 1997).
1991 “The Potential for an Interdisciplinary Approach to Intellectual Property Scholarship.” Introduction to a special issue of my student’s essays Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Intellectual Property Issues. Intellectual Property Journal 6: 265-269.
1990 “Barren Ground: Reconceiving Honour and Shame in the Field of Mediterranean Ethnography.” Anthropologica 32: 221-238.
1989 “Room for Manoeuver: Toward a Theory of Practice in Critical Legal Studies.” Law & Social Inquiry: Journal of the American Bar Foundation 14(1): 69-121.
1989 “Same As It Ever Was: Rethinking the Politics of Legal Interpretation.” McGill Law Journal 34: 603-652.
1988 “' The Most Disgusting, Disgraceful and Inequitous Proceeding in our Law': The Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage in Nineteenth Century Ontario.” University of Toronto Law Journal 38: 64-108.
“Intellectual Properties and the Limits of Human Rights Categories: Claiming Cultural Rights in Neoliberal Environments,” in “The Not Quite Publics and the Public Domain” Panel in Contested Commons, Trespassing Publics: A Public Record (Delhi: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies) 10-16.
“Preserving Cultural Diversity through the Preservation of Biological Diversity” in Fiona Miller, et. al. eds., The Gender of Genetic Futures: The Canadian Biotechnology Strategy, Women and Health (National Network on Environments and Women’s Health Working Paper Series, September) 133-161.
“Culture: Anthropology's Old Vice or International Law's New Virtue?” Proceedings of the American Society for International Law Annual Meetings 79: 261-270.
Expert’s Report on The Crucible Group, “Seeding Solutions: Policy Options for Plant Genetic Resources” for the International Development Research Centre, July, 2000.25pp
“Preserving Cultural Diversity through the Preservation of Biological Diversity: Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and the Role of Digital Technologies.” A research report commissioned by the Cultural Policy Division of the Council of Europe, July, 2000. 48 pp.
“The Protection of Indigenous Knowledge under the Convention on Biological Diversity: The International Human Rights Framework and Canadian Policy Options.” Prepared for the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate, Industry Canada, May 1998. 280 pp.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | GS/ANTH6011 3.0 | M | TheoreticalConceptsInEthnographicInquiry | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | GS/ANTH5000 6.0 | A | Graduate Seminar in Ethnographic Researc | SEMR |
Rosemary’s current work explores and problematizes the politics and social implications of cultural property laws, heritage, biocultural rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology, delineating how each intersects with neoliberalism, informational capital, and human rights, particularly in specific contemporary Latin American and Southeast Asian contexts.
Rosemary J. Coombe is a Tier One Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Culture (2001-2022) at York University in Toronto, where she teaches in the Department of Anthropology, the York and Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture, and the Graduate Program in Socio-Legal Studies. Prior to being awarded one of the country’s first Canada Research Chairs, she was Full Professor of Law at the University of Toronto.
Published widely in the fields of legal anthropology, cultural studies, and sociolegal studies, Rosemary holds a Doctorate of Science of Law (J.S.D.) from Stanford University, with a Minor in Anthropology, has published over thirty referred book chapters and over forty referred journal articles, and has delivered over two hundred and thirty conference lectures and papers. She has held research fellowships at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Utrecht and Gottingen Universities, and the American Bar Foundation and visitorships at the Universities of Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Iowa, American, De Paul, and Chicago. In spring 2018 she was the Visiting Professor at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia and the T.C. Bierne Visiting Fellow at the University of Queensland Law School in Australia.
Exploring the cultural, political, and social implications of intellectual property law, Rosemary’s current work explores and problematizes the politics of cultural property, heritage, biocultural rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology, delineating how each intersects with neoliberalism, informational capital and human rights, particularly in contemporary Andean Community and Southeast Asian contexts. Her larger project titled The Work of Culture in the Era of Informational Capital: Global Intellectual Property and Its Publics, explores how indigenist movements and NGOs increasingly mobilize culture as a resource by articulating and transforming international legal and policy norms locally and in transnational contexts. The volume explores how intellectual property rhetoric and legal vehicles combined with rights practices are used to protect cultural diversity, traditional knowledge, and cultural heritage. How and why has the advent of the information economy revitalized contemporary cultural claims, and to what extent can appeals for the protection of traditions serve progressive ends?
Her first book was a legal ethnography The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law (Duke University Press, published in 1998 and reprinted in 2008), exploring the different ways in which intellectual property law shapes cultural politics in consumer societies. It received a Law and Society Association Herbert Jacob Award Honorable Mention (second prize) for best new book in law and society scholarship in June 2000. In 2014 Rosemary co-edited with Darren Wershler and Martin Zeilinger the University of Toronto Press volume, Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online, whose over two dozen contributions, authored by scholars, practitioners and artists working in varied disciplines and genres, clarify the intersections between Canadian copyright law, digital technologies and practices of dynamic fair dealing, emphasizing emergent approaches to creating, circulating and managing digital cultural objects that challenge or present alternatives to traditional intellectual property and cultural policy paradigms.
Degrees
J.S.D./Ph.D. (Doctor of the Science of Law/Minor in Anthropology), Stanford UniversityJ.S.M. (Master of the Science of Law), Stanford University
LL.B. (With Great Distinction) Highest standing in graduating class, University of Western Ontario
B.A. (Honors) Anthropology/Political Science, University of Western Ontario
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesProfessional Leadership
2001-2022 Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication, and Culture – York University. Tier One Chair (highest level position in Canada awarded by the federal government to “experienced individuals acknowledged by their peers as world leaders in their research fields.” Department of Social Science and Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. Appointed to second term, 2008. Appointed to third term, 2015.
2013-5 Adjunct Professor II, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Social Anthropology (appointed “to raise the theoretical level of ambition and increase the publication activities of the Department”).
2012 Visiting Fellow, Stanford University Centre for Archaeology and Human Rights.
2009-12 Inaugural Faculty Convenor and continuing Faculty Workshop Leader, Culture, Rights, Identity: Interfaces between the Humanities and the Law; Convergences: Law, Language and Culture, Synergies: Law, Language and Culture; Correlations: Law and Culture, International Summer School, Osnabruck University, Germany.
2011 Academic Fellow, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa.
2009 Visiting Scholar, “The Constituting of Cultural Property: Actors, Discourses, Contexts, Rules.” Research Group funded by the Deutsche Forschengsgemeinschaft, Institut für Kulturanthropologie, Georg-August-Universitat, Gottingen, Germany.
2008 Visiting Scholar, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Visiting Research Scholar, The Philosophy, Ethics and Social Theory Research Group, Wellington University, New Zealand.
2006 Wiarda Chair, Utrecht University, Netherlands.
2003-4 William Lyon Mackenzie King Chair of Canadian Studies – Harvard University, Department of Anthropology and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
2002-3 Visiting Scholar – Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1999-2000 Full Professor of Law -- Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.
1993-9 Associate Professor of Law -- Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.
1995-6 Visiting Professor, University of Chicago Humanities Institute.
Research Affiliate, American Bar Foundation.
1993 Weatherhead Resident Scholar -- School of American Research, Santa Fe, NM.
1990 Karl Loewenstein Fellowship in Political Science and Jurisprudence -- Amherst College, Massachusetts.
1988-93 Assistant Professor of Law -- University of Toronto.
Community Contributions
2019-20 Board of Directors, Society for Cultural Property (publishers of the International Journal of Cultural Property).
2016-18 Academic Board -- Argumentos. Estudios Transdisciplinares en Culturas Juridicas y Administracin de justicia (Arguments: Trans-disciplinary studies in legal cultures and administration of justice).
2012-21 Editorial Board – Stanford Studies in Human Rights series, Stanford University Press.
2010 -19 Editorial Board – Gottingen Studies in Cultural Property series, University of Gottingen Press.
2008-2022 Editorial Board – Political and Legal Anthropology Review (four terms).
2010-2 Editorial Board – American Anthropologist.
2008-12 Editorial Board – Lateral (Journal of the Cultural Studies Association).
Editorial Board – Copyright Journal, an online peer-reviewed journal.
2003-5 Advisory Board – Intellectual Property Rights and Archaeology Collaborative Research Proposal (National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Program).
1995-8 Editorial Advisory Board -- Law & Society Review, Journal of Sport & Social Issues
1992-7 Board of Directors -- Association for Political & Legal Anthropology (two terms)
1994-8 Associate Editor -- POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review
1993-6 Board of Trustees -- Law & Society Association
Research Interests
Awards
- Indigenous Comparative Approaches to Culture Based Tourism in Canada and Ecuador. SSHRC Connections Grant. Co-investigator. - 2017-9
- Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage. SSHRC Partnership Grant Notice of Intent Award. Co-investigator. - 2017
- Canada Foundation for Innovation Infrastructure Operating Funds Grant. - 2017
- See More…, Know More? Do More! Shaping and Sharing Canada’s Digital Media Heritage. Canadian Media Research Consortium. PI. - 2016
- Swidden Agriculture, Traditional Knowledge, and Biocultural Rights. Prospects for Marks Indicating Conditions of Origin in the Seven Sister States. Norwegian University of Science and Technology subgrant pursuant to The Cultural Logic of Facts and Figures grant. PI. - 2016
- Biocultural Diversity and Indigenous Governance in the Americas: A Case Study from Peru. Norwegian University of Science and Technology subgrant pursuant to The Cultural Logic of Facts and Figures grant. PI. - 2013
- The Cultural Logic of Facts and Figures: Objectification, Measurement and Standardization as Social Processes. Norwegian Research Council. Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Co-investigator. - 2012-5
- Vernacular, Customary and Conventional Laws for Protecting Cultural Heritage; Fragmentation or Pluralism in the Multiversity? PI and Conference Organizer. - 2012
- Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online. Canadian Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences Award for Scholarly Publications - 2012
- Canada Foundation for Innovation Operating Funds grant. - 2010-2
- The Politics of Scale: Mapping the Transnational Policy Field of Cultural Rights. SSHRC General Research Grant. PI. - 2010-3
- Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage: Culture, Theory, Practice, Policy, Ethics (IPinCH). SSHRC Multiple Collaborator Research Initiative ($2,500,000). Co-investigator. Winner of the SSHRC IMPACT Award, 2016. - 2008-15
- SSHRC Conference Grant. Taking Back the Streets: Global Carnival Cultures. Co-investigator. - 2008
- New Media Collaboration Centre: Canadian Arts Content Management Centre and Centre for Digital Policy and Cultural Rights Initiative. Canadian Foundation for Infrastructure Grant. Co-investigator. - 2007-10
- SSHRC Image Text Sound Technology Networking Grant. Creating an Ethos of Fair Dealing in Canadian Cultural Content Online. PI. - 2006-8
All Publications
Archives and Cultural Legibility: Objects and Subjects of Neoliberal Heritage Technologies (with Eugenia Kisin). In Tord Larson et al. eds., Objectification and Standardisation: On the Limits and Effects of ritually fixing and measuring life (Ritual Studies Series, Carolina Academic Press), pp. 257-292.
Ownership of Intangibles: Intellectual Property and the Contested Commons (with S. Ali Malik). In Kamala Clarke, Eve Darien Smith, and Mariana Valverde, eds., Routledge Handbook on Law and Society. (London: Routledge), 203-208.
Aboriginal Community Research: Government and Neoliberal Self-Determination (with Daniel Huizenga). In Deborah Brock, ed., Re-making Normal: Governing the Social in Neoliberal Times (UBC Press), 109-132.
Frontiers of Cultural Property in the Global South. In Haidy Geismar & Jane Anderson, eds., Routledge Companion to Cultural Property (London: Routledge), 374-400
Rethinking the Work Of Geographical Indications in Asia: Addressing Hidden Geographies of Gendered Labour (with Ali Malik). In Irene Calboli & Ng-Loy Wee Loon, eds., Geographic Indications at the Crossroads of Trade and Development in Asia (Cambridge University Press), 87-121.
Neoliberalism, Heritage Regimes, and Cultural Rights (with Lindsay Weiss). In Lynn Meskell, ed., Global Heritage: A Reader (Wiley-Blackwell), 43-69.
The Limits of Heritage: Corporate Interests and Cultural Rights on Resource Frontiers (with Melissa Baird). In William Logan, Mairead Nic Craith & Ullrich Kockel eds., The Blackwell Companion to the New Heritage Studies (Wiley-Blackwell), 337-354.
Geographical Indications: The Promise, Perils and Politics of Protecting Place-Based Products
(with Sarah Ives and Daniel Huizenga). In Matthew David & Deborah Halbert eds., Sage Handbook on Intellectual Property (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications), 207-223.
Introducing Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Digital Culture. In Rosemary J. Coombe, Darren Wershler & Martin Zeilinger (eds.) Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online (University of Toronto Press), 3-43.
The Evolution of Cultural Heritage Ethics Via Human Rights Norms (with Nicole Aylwin). In Rosemary J. Coombe, Darren Wershler & Martin Zeilinger (eds.) Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online(University of Toronto Press), 201-212.
The Social Imaginary of Geographical Indicators in Contested Environments: The Politicized Heritage and the Racialized Landscapes of South African Rooibos Tea (with Sarah Ives and Daniel Huizenga). In Matthew David & Deborah Halbert eds., Sage Handbook on Intellectual Property (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications), 224-237.
Three Peters and an Obsession with Pierre in a 'Piece of Work': Intellectual Property in John Greyson's Un©ut (with Martin Zeilinger). In Brenda Longfellow, Scott MacKenzie & Tim Waugh, eds., The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson (McGill Queens University Press), 438-449.
Managing Cultural Heritage as Neoliberal Governmentality. In Heritage Regimes and the State. Regina Bendix, Aditya Eggert, Arnika Peselmann & Sven Mißling, eds. (Göttingen University Press), 375-389.
Cultural Agencies: The Legal Construction of Community Subjects and their Properties. In Mario Biagioli, Peter Jaszi, & Martha Woodmansee, eds., Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property (University of Chicago Press) 79-98.
Possessing Culture: Political Economies of Community Subjects and their Properties. In M. Busse & V. Strang, eds., Ownership and Appropriation (Berg Publishers) 105-127
2009 “A Broken Record: Subjecting ‘Music’ to Cultural Rights,” (with Elizabeth B. Coleman and Fiona MacAlrault) in James C. Young and Conrad Brunck, eds., Ethics of Cultural Appropriation (London: Blackwell) 179-210.
2009 “Digital Media and the Informational Politics of Appropriation,” (with David Meurer) in Atopia Projects, eds., Lifting: “Theft” in Art. (Aberdeen, UK: Peacock Visual Arts) 20-27.
2009 “First Nations’ Intangible Cultural Heritage Concerns: Prospects for Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions in International Law,” in Catherine Bell & Robert Paterson, eds., Protection of First Nations’ Cultural Heritage: Laws, Policy and Reform (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press) 247-277.
2009 “Indigenous Cultural Heritage Rights in International Human Rights Law” (with Mohsen al atar Ahmed and Nicole Aylwin) in Catherine Bell and Robert Paterson, eds., Protection of First Nations’ Cultural Heritage: Laws, Policy and Reform (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press) 311-342
Excerpts were published online for critique and commentary invited by Lifting, an online anthology created by Atopia Projects (2007) in conjunction with their curated exhibition of art Lifting: Theft in Art, Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, UK. 25 August – 29 September, 2007.
“Authorizing the Celebrity: Engendering Alternative Identities,” was reprinted as Chapter 40 in P. David Marshall, ed., The Celebrity Culture Reader (New York: Routledge, 2006).
2005 “Bearing Cultural Distinction: Informational Capital and New Expectations for Intellectual Property” (with Steven Schnoor and Mohsen al atar Ahmed) in J. Brinkhof and F. Willem Grosheide, eds., Articles in Intellectual Property: Crossing Boundaries (Antwerp: Intersentia) 191-211.
Reprinted in “Intellectual Property and Social Justice” Symposium Issue. University of California-Davis Law Review 40(3): 891-917 (2007).
“Making Music in the Soundscapes of the Law.” Foreword to Joanna Demers’ Musical Appropriation, Musical Meaning, and the Law (Athens: University of Georgia Press) i-xii.
2005 “Protecting Cultural Industries to Promote Cultural Diversity: Dilemmas for International Policy-making Posed by the Recognition of Traditional Knowledge” in K. Maskus and J. Reichman, eds., International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology Under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime (Cambridge University Press) 599-614.
Reprinted in V. V. Ramani and A. V. Bala Krishana, eds., Cultural Industries: Perspectives and Experiences (Hyderabad: ICfai University Press, 2008) 45-64.
“Objects of Politics and Subjects of Property” and “Authorizing the Celebrity Persona” were reprinted in Sally Falk Moore, ed., Anthropology and Law: A Reader (London: Basil Blackwell, 2005) pp. 113-123.
2004 “Commodity Culture, Private Censorship, Branded Environnments, and Global Trade Politics: Intellectual Property as a Topic of Law and Society Research” in Austin Sarat, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society (Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell) 369-391.
2003 “Works in Progress: Indigenous Knowledge, Biological Diversity and Intellectual Property in a Neoliberal Era” in Richard W. Perry and William Maurer, eds., Globalization Under Construction: Governmentality, Law and Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) 273-314.
2001 “Preserving Cultural Diversity through the Preservation of Biological Diversity: Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and the Role of Digital Technologies” in Tony Bennett, ed., Differing Diversities: Transversal Study on the Theme of Cultural Policy and Cultural Diversity (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing) 169-200.
1999 “Sports Trademarks and Somatic Politics: Locating the Law in a Critical Cultural Studies,” in Randy Martin & Toby Miller, eds., SportCult (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) 262-288.
• Reprinted in D. Goldberg, M. Musheno and L. Bower, eds., Between Law and Culture: Relocating Legal Studies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001) 22-49.
1998 “Contingent Articulations: A Critical Cultural Studies of Law,” in Austin Sarat and Tom Kearns, eds., Law in the Domain of Culture (University of Michigan Press) 21-64.
1997 “The Demonic Place of the Not-There: Trademark Rumors in the Imaginary Spaces of Postindustriality,” in James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta, eds., Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology (Durham: Duke University Press) 249-274.
2008 “Rethinking Creativity and Value,” Review of Johanna Gibson, Creating Selves: Intellectual Property and the Narration of Culture (Dartmouth: Ashgate, 2006). Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice 3 (12): 804.
2003 Review of Carol Greenhouse (with Roshanak Kheshti), Democracy and Ethnography (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998). American Ethnologist 30: 625-6.
The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation and the Law. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998) 462 pp. Reprinted in 2008.
Posthuman Rights Struggles and Environmentalisms from Below in the Political Ontologies of Colombia and Ecuador (with David J. Jefferson). Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 12 (2): 177-204.
Transforming the Work of Geographical Indications to Decolonize Racialized Labor and Support Agroecology (with Sajjid Ali Malik). 8 (3) UC Irvine Law Review 363-412 (special issue titled Intellectual Property and Human Rights).
The Knowledge Economy and its Cultures: Neoliberalism and Latin American Reterritorializations. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (3): 247-75 (special issue symposium titled Language and Political Economy Revisited).
Marks Indicating Conditions of Production in Rights-based Sustainable Development (with Nicole Aylwin). “Brand New Worlds” special issue. University of California Davis Law Review 47(3): 753-786.
Bordering Diversity and Desire: Using Intellectual Property to Mark Place-based Products (with Nicole Aylwin). Environment and Planning A: Society and Space43(9): 2027-2042.
What’s Feminist about Open Access? A Relational Approach to Copyright in the Academy (with Carys Craig and Joseph F. Turcotte). feminists@law: an open access journal of feminist legal scholarship 1(1): ISSN: 2046-9551. (http://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/feministsatlaw/issue/current)
Honing a Critical Cultural Study of Human Rights. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7 (3): 230-246.
“Intellectual Property Issues in Heritage Management Part 2: Legal Dimensions, Ethical Considerations, and Collaborative Research Practices,” Journal of Heritage Management (with George Nicholas, Catherine Bell, John Welch, Brian Noble, Jane Anderson, Kelly Bannister, and Joe Watkins). 3: 117-147.
“The Expanding Purview of Cultural Properties and their Politics.” Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences< 5: 393-412.
• Translated and reprinted as “Der zunehmende Geltungsbereich von Cultural Properties und ihrer Politik.” In: R. Bendix, K. Bizer, S. Groth, eds. Die Konstituierung von Cultural Property: Forschungsperspektiven. University of Göttingen Press, 2010
“Your Second Life? The Performativity of Intellectual Property in Online Games” (with Andrew Herman and Lewis Kaye). Cultural Studies 20 (2&3): 184-210.
• Reprinted in Pramod K. Nayar, ed., The New Media and Cybercultures Reader (Wiley Blackwell, 2010) 441-464.
“Legal Claims to Culture in and Against the Market: Neoliberalism and the Global Proliferation of Meaningful Difference” Law, Culture and Humanities 1(1): 32-55.
Reprinted in Eve Darien-Smith, ed., Ethnography and Law (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) 95-115.
“Protecting Traditional Environmental Knowledge and New Social Movements in the Americas: Intellectual Property, Human Right or Claims to an Alternative Form of Sustainable Development?” Florida Journal of International Law 17(1): 115-136.
“The Human Genome Diversity Project: The Politics of Patents at the Intersection of Race, Religion Research Ethics, and Human Rights” (with Bita Amani). 27 Law and Policy 27 (1): 152-188 (Special issue on Law, Technology and Development).
• Reprinted in William Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) 479-518.
“Rhetorical Virtues: Property, Speech and the Commons on the world-wide Web” (With Andrew Herman). Anthropology Quarterly 77: 559-574.
“Fear, Hope, and Longing for the Future of Authorship and a Revitalized Public Domain in Global Regimes of Intellectual Property.” De Paul Law Review 52: 171-1191.
“Culture Wars on the Net: Trademarks, Consumer Politics and Corporate Accountability on the World Wide Web.” South Atlantic Quarterly 100: 919 - 947 (co-authored with Andrew Herman). Special issue on “Culture and the Law” edited by Gaurav Desai.
• Reprinted in William T. Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2007) 579-608.
“The Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Traditional Knowledge in International Law.” St. Thomas Law Review 14: 275-285.
2000 “Trademarks, Property, and Propriety: The Moral Economy of Consumer Politics and Corporate Accountability on the World Wide Web.” De Paul Law Review 50: 597-632. (coauthored with Andrew Herman)
1999 “The Law and Late Modern Culture: Reflections on Between Facts and Norms from the Perspective of a Critical Cultural Legal Studies” (with Jonathan Cohen). Symposium Issue on Jurgen Habermas. University of Denver Law Review 76: 1029-1055.
1998 “Critical Cultural Legal Studies.” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 10: 463-486.
1998 “Intellectual Property, Human Rights, and Sovereignty: New Dilemmas in International Law Posed by the Recognition of Indigenous Knowledge and the Conservation of Biodiversity” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 6 (1): 59-115.
1997 “En/gendering and Identifying the Forms of Emergent Civil Societies: New Directions in Political Anthropology.” Guest-editor's introduction to a special issue on Civil Society in Postcolonial Contexts. PoLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review 20: 1-12.
1996 “Authorial Cartographies: Mapping Proprietary Borders in a Less Than Brave New World.” Stanford Law Review 48(5): 1357-1366.
1996 “Embodied Trademarks: Mimesis & Alterity on American Commercial Frontiers.” Cultural Anthropology 11(2): 202-224.
1996 “Left Out on the Information Highway.” Oregon Law Review 75: 237-247.
1995 “Marking Difference in American Commerce: Trademarks and Alterity at Century's Ends.” Canadian Journal of Law & Society 10(2): 109-128.
• Reprinted in POLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review 19(1): 105-116 (1996).
1995 “The Cultural Life of Things: Anthropological Approaches to Law and Society in Conditions of Globalization.” American University Journal of International Law and Policy 10(2): 91-836.
• Reprinted in Alexandra George, ed., Globalisation and Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays on Globalization and Law Series. Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing, 2006) 590-610.
• Abbreviated version reprinted in Nicholas Blomley, David Delaney, and Richard T. Ford, eds., The Legal Geographies Reader (Oxford and Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell, 2001) 298-318.
1994 “Challenging Paternity: Histories of Copyright.” Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 6: 397-422.
1994 “X Marks the Spot: The Ambiguities of African Trading in the Commerce of the Black Public Sphere.” Public Culture: Society for Transnational Studies 7 (2): 249-274 (with Paul Stoller).
• Reprinted in The Public Sphere Collective, ed., The Black Public Sphere (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 253-278.
1993 “Cultural and Intellectual Property: Occupying the Colonial Imagination.” POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 16 (1): 8 - 16.
• Reprinted in P. Drahos, ed., Intellectual Property a volume in the International Library of Essays in Legal Thought and Legal Theory series (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing, 1999) 171-180.
1993 “Tactics of Appropriation and the Politics of Recognition in Late Modern Democracies.” Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy 21 (3): 411 - 433.
1993 “The Properties of Culture and the Politics of Possessing Identity: Native Claims in the Cultural Appropriation Controversy.” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 6 (2): 249 - 285.
• Reprinted in Elspeth Cameron ed., Multiculturalism & Immigration in Canada: An Introductory Reader (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2004) 133-158.
• Abbreviated version reprinted in Karen Engle and Dan Danielson, eds., After Identity: A Reader in Law and Culture (New York: Routledge, 1995) 251-272.
• Another abbreviation reprinted in Bruce Ziff, ed., Borrowed Power: Issues of Cultural Appropriation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997) 75-96.
• Abbreviated in Patty Girstenblith ed., Art, Cultural Heritage and the Law (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2004) 541-545 and in the Second Edition (2008) 596-99.
1992 “Author/izing the Celebrity: Publicity Rights, Postmodern Politics, and Unauthorized Genders.” Special issue titled “Intellectual Property and the Construction of Authorship.” Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal 10: 365 - 395.
• Reprinted in Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi, eds., The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriations in Law and Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994) 101 - 131.
• Reprinted in Peter Yu, ed., The Marketplace of Ideas: Twenty Years of the Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal (New York: Kluwer International, 2002) 236-266.
• Reprinted in W. Gallagher, ed., Intellectual Property (a volume in the International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Ashgate 2007) 519-550.
1992 “Publicity Rights and Political Aspiration: Mass Culture, Gender Identity and Democracy.” New England Law Review 26 (4): 1221-1280 (1992).
1992 “The Celebrity Image and Cultural Identity: Publicity Rights and the Subaltern Politics of Gender.” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media & Culture 14(3): 59 – 88 (1992).
• Reprinted in Toby Miller, ed., The Contemporary Hollywood Reader (Routledge 2009) 453-471.
1991 “Beyond Modernity's Meanings: Engaging the Postmodern in Cultural Anthropology.” Culture: Journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society 11(1): 111- 124.
1991 “Contesting the Self: Negotiating Subjectivities in Nineteenth Century Ontario Defamation Trials.” Studies in Law, Politics and Society 11: 3-40.
1991 “Encountering the Postmodern: New Directions in Cultural Anthropology.” Symposium issue titled “Cultural Studies in Canada: Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 28: 188-205.
1991 “Objects of Property and Subjects of Politics: Intellectual Property Laws and Democratic Dialogue.” Texas Law Review 69: 1853 - 1880.
• Reprinted in Dennis Patterson ed., Postmodernism and Law, in The International Library of Essays in Legal Theory (Dartmouth, 1993) 275-302.
• Reprinted in Alan Freeman and Elizabeth Mensch, eds., Essays in Property. Volume II (Dartmouth, 1992) 415-442.
• Abbreviated for inclusion in M. La France, G. Myers, and D. Lange, eds., Intellectual Property (West Publishing, 1997).
1991 “The Potential for an Interdisciplinary Approach to Intellectual Property Scholarship.” Introduction to a special issue of my student’s essays Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Intellectual Property Issues. Intellectual Property Journal 6: 265-269.
1990 “Barren Ground: Reconceiving Honour and Shame in the Field of Mediterranean Ethnography.” Anthropologica 32: 221-238.
1989 “Room for Manoeuver: Toward a Theory of Practice in Critical Legal Studies.” Law & Social Inquiry: Journal of the American Bar Foundation 14(1): 69-121.
1989 “Same As It Ever Was: Rethinking the Politics of Legal Interpretation.” McGill Law Journal 34: 603-652.
1988 “' The Most Disgusting, Disgraceful and Inequitous Proceeding in our Law': The Action for Breach of Promise of Marriage in Nineteenth Century Ontario.” University of Toronto Law Journal 38: 64-108.
“Intellectual Properties and the Limits of Human Rights Categories: Claiming Cultural Rights in Neoliberal Environments,” in “The Not Quite Publics and the Public Domain” Panel in Contested Commons, Trespassing Publics: A Public Record (Delhi: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies) 10-16.
“Preserving Cultural Diversity through the Preservation of Biological Diversity” in Fiona Miller, et. al. eds., The Gender of Genetic Futures: The Canadian Biotechnology Strategy, Women and Health (National Network on Environments and Women’s Health Working Paper Series, September) 133-161.
“Culture: Anthropology's Old Vice or International Law's New Virtue?” Proceedings of the American Society for International Law Annual Meetings 79: 261-270.
Expert’s Report on The Crucible Group, “Seeding Solutions: Policy Options for Plant Genetic Resources” for the International Development Research Centre, July, 2000.25pp
“Preserving Cultural Diversity through the Preservation of Biological Diversity: Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and the Role of Digital Technologies.” A research report commissioned by the Cultural Policy Division of the Council of Europe, July, 2000. 48 pp.
“The Protection of Indigenous Knowledge under the Convention on Biological Diversity: The International Human Rights Framework and Canadian Policy Options.” Prepared for the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate, Industry Canada, May 1998. 280 pp.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2024 | GS/ANTH6011 3.0 | M | TheoreticalConceptsInEthnographicInquiry | SEMR |
| Fall/Winter 2023 | GS/ANTH5000 6.0 | A | Graduate Seminar in Ethnographic Researc | SEMR |
