The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) research project is an international collaboration of archaeologists, Indigenous organizations, lawyers, anthropologists, ethicists, policy makers, and others working to explore and facilitate fair and equitable exchanges of knowledge relating to archaeology. We are concerned with the theoretical, ethical, and practical implications of commodification, appropriation, and other flows of knowledge about the past, and how these may affect communities, researchers, and other stakeholders.
The IPinCH project represents an international, interdisciplinary collaboration among more than 50 scholars and 25 partnering organizations embarking on an unprecedented and timely investigation of intellectual property (IP) issues in cultural heritage that represent emergent local and global interpretations of culture, rights, and knowledge. Objectives of the project are: to document the diversity of principles, interpretations, and actions arising in response to IP issues in cultural heritage worldwide; to analyze the many implications of these situations; to generate more robust theoretical understandings as well as exemplars of good practice; and to make these findings available to stakeholders—from Aboriginal communities to professional organizations to government agencies—to develop and refine their own theories, principles, policies and practices.
The AAI is a Partnering Organization on the IPinCH project and Eric Kansa is part of the Research Team.
Visit the IPinCH project website.
(The above description is from the IPinCH website and is used with permission.)
