Epistemic communities and the "people without history": the contribution of intellectual property law to the "safeguarding" of intangible cultural heritage

In this chapter, I will discuss the possibilities for and limitations of intellectual property concepts in attempts at national and international level to safeguard and protect intangible cultural heritage. I will focus on the dichotomy between intellectual and cultural property and the relationship of TK/TCE to the wider heritage complex. I will argue that international lawyers and socio-legal scholars have begun to analyse this relationship, but that it is still important to pay closer attention to the multi-facetted environment in developing countries and to the context of economic development to understand the prospects and limitations for international law making. I will show how overlaps between IP and cultural property are now leading to disputes that create in fact serious frictions between neighbouring countries. I will further argue that such claims are based on a misunderstanding of the limitations of both intellectual and cultural property, but that these concepts develop their own life in the policy environment of developing nations.