Managing, Manipulating and Manuevering Biology in the Early 21st Century: Reflections on Discursive Practice, Empirical Events and Power in Pursuit of Bio-Commerce

Abstract:     
This paper reviews and offers a meta-analysis of more than a decade of literature that explicitly considers both bioprospecting and biopiracy. I do so with a judgment sample of the literature, primarily from American academic writing in English and with some sources from Latin American colleagues in Spanish. The point of this meta-analysis is twofold: (1) to elaborate the ways in which certain individuals treat the subject matter that is the focus of attention; and (2) to discern critical gaps left out of the literature explicitly dealing with bioprospecting and biopiracy. Additionally, I step back from the authors shaping discourses of bioprospecting and biopiracy in order to discern the underlying power dynamics in this debate, and the implications for biocommerce.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 74

Keywords: bioprospecting, biopiracy, biocommerce, Ecuador, Latin America, access and benefit sharing, ABS, Convention on Biological Diversity, CBD

JEL Classification: B14,B22,F21,F23,F42,F43,L3,L31,L33,N26,P1,P12,P16

working papers series