Traditional knowledge in Asia: global agendas and local subjects

This chapter attempts to heed John Gillespie’s call for an account that canvasses the ‘myriad’ local positions. It does not regard the ‘local’ as identical or exclusively represented by central state actors and will demonstrate how local and national interests interact with international and regional institutions, foreign governments and multinational corporations and their demands for internationally harmonised regulation. ‘Local’ in this chapter refers, therefore, largely to the subnational level and it is understood as ‘locality’ linking territory with certain population groups rather than as ‘local business people, networks etc.” The chapter attempts to go beyond the frequently analysed dichotomies of North versus South and industrialised versus developing countries. All protagonists in the traditional knowledge debate use aspects of globalisation and globalised legal regimes at times to their advantage, while perhaps opposing other aspects at other times. However, the occasionally paradoxical use of homogenising globalised legal regimes to defend local cultural identity may ultimately lead to the partial destruction and disappearance of precisely those forms of local traditions, which their proponents want to uphold.