April 2020
REPORT: “Commodification of the Past?” Working Group
Sven Ouzman and Solen Roth
Goals:
The goals of this group are to research, document, and critically engage with issues related to the commodification of representations and fragments of cultural heritage. Major lines of inquiry include the definition and valuation of tangible/intangible heritage; research as a process of commodification; the role and efficacy of heritage legislation; and the many uses of “the past” by descendant communities, researchers, and the public, including is use as an economic resource.
People:

Co-chair: Sven Ouzman, Curator of Pre-Colonial Archaeology, Social History
Collections Department, Iziko South African Museum, 25 Queen Victoria Street, Cape
Town, 8000, South Africa, Tel: 021 481 3883; Email: souzman@iziko.org.za
; Web: www.iziko.org.za
Sven Ouzman has been co-chair since the WG’s inception, and has been central to developing the group’s goals and purposes. He regularly contributes via email, conferences, public lectures and articles on real world IP issues in cultural heritage, and has provided examples of appropriation for the Knowledge Base (KB). His concern for IPinCH is to ensure equitable representation from the Southern
Hemisphere. His research centres on definitions of indigeneity, on the uses and abuses of archaeology – especially San rock art – in popular media and as used in state symbols. He studies rock art in general and graffiti in particular, museums, monuments, and public understandings of ‘heritage’; especially in the post-colony.

Co-chair: Solen Roth, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Email: roths@interchange.ubc.ca
When former co-chair, Jane Anderson, stepped down to take on another role in the
IPinCH project, Graduate Student Fellow Solen Roth stepped in to fill the role. She is currently working to complete her dissertation, The Native Northwest Coast Giftware
Industry: Ethics, Politics, and Economics, in which she examines the effects of commodification on Indigenous cultural heritage, artistic expression, and IP. She also writes the IPinCH Student blog, sharing thoughts related to Commodification of the
Past stimulated by workshops, colloquia, seminars, and digital art projects.

Research Assistant Jay Herbert, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University
In the fall of 2010, Jay Herbert, then an M.A. candidate at SFU, completed a bibliography of resources in the KB (KB-1623). His final report outlines major themes running through the more than 200 resources he surveyed.

April 2020

Research Assistant Elizabeth Peterson, a Ph.D. student at SFU, has just joined us.

WG Members: Brian Noble, Jane Anderson, George Smith, Rosemary Coombe,
George Nicholas.
Selected Activities/Output:

Policy:
Sven Ouzman is inserting IP issues into the Human Remains policy currently under development at the Iziko Museum, as well as drafting a separate IP document for use of any archaeological material, related photographs, meta-data, electronic data, etc.
 Publications:
Nicholas, G., C. Bell, K. Bannister, S. Ouzman, and J. Anderson. 2009. Intellectual
Property Issues in Heritage Management, Part 1: Challenges and Opportunities
Relating to Appropriation, Information Access, Bioarchaeology, and Cultural Tourism.
Heritage Management 2(2): 261-286.
Nicholas, G. and A. Wylie. 2009. Archaeological Finds: Legacies of Appropriation,
Modes of Response. In The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation, edited by J. Young and C.
Brunk, pp. 11-54. Wiley-Blackwell.
D. Brown and G. Nicholas. Forthcoming. Protecting Indigenous Cultural Property in the Age of Digital Democracy: Conventional Legal Approaches to Canadian First
Nations and Maori Heritage. Journal of Material Culture.
 Conference Sessions and Presentations:
Brown, D. and G. Nicholas, Protecting Canadian First Nations and Maori. Heritage through Conventional Legal Means. (Paper) Canada and New Zealand: Connections,
Comparisons and Challenges. U. of Wellington, Wellington, NZ. February 9, 2010.
Nicholas, G., S. Ouzman, S. Forbes and E. Kansa. 2008, Cultural and Intellectual
Property Issues in Archaeological Heritage: Identifying the Issues, Developing Modes of Resolution. (Session organizers). 6th World Archaeological Congress, Dublin, Jun
29-July 4.
Roth, S. 2010. Not Just Their “Kitsch Mirror”: Museum Reproductions and the Native
Northwest Coast Giftware Industry. (Paper) American Anthropology Association, New
Orleans, LA, Nov. 19.
Roth, S. 2011. Beyond Collaborative Research and Exhibitions: Markets,
Reproductions, and the Idea of “Collaboration.” (Paper). World Archaeological
Congress Intercongress, Indianapolis, June 23-24.

April 2020
Roth, S. 2011. Collaboration, Communication, and Negotiation in the Age of Digital
Media and Mass- Production. Indigenous People and Museums. (Session organizer).
World Archaeological Congress Intercongress, Indianapolis, June 23.
Ouzman, S. 2011. Collections and Conundrums: Southern African Archaeological
Collections. Session co-chair (with Leon Jacobson, McGregor Museum). Biennial
Conference of the Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists, , 1-3
July, Mbabane, Swaziland. Session devoted to collections of material culture and data and one of the six main topics was digital and intellectual property from both academic, commercial, legal and indigenous perspectives.
Ouzman, S. 2011. Bushman specimens: the hidden lives of objects. (Paper) The
Courage of //Kabbo conference, 17-20 August, Cape Town. [A third of this paper was devoted to San intellectual property issues]
Coombe, R. and N. Aylwin. 2011. Bordering Diversity and Desire: Marking Place
Based Products in Commerce. Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study Fellows
Symposium, Feb. 25.
 Blog:
Solen Roth has been writing entries for the Student IPinCH blog, sharing thoughts related to the WG theme stimulated by participation in workshops, colloquia, and digital art projects.
• Exhibitions:
Sven Ouzman, Lalou Meltzer and Gerald Klinghardt curated Sounds and Silences from
a San Archive, 18 August 2011 – 15 May 2012, Iziko Bertram House, Cape Town,
South Africa. Of the seven display cabinets, one large one, flanked by contemporary
San art, is devoted to the San archive past and present and explicitly raises IP issues, including a display of the WIMSA Media and Research contract.
Student Training/Experience:
 IPinCH Graduate Student Fellow Solen Roth had her work reviewed by co-chair
Ouzman and the Project Director; her position as WG co-chair is giving her experience in various aspects of academic research.
 Graduate student Jay Herbert was hired as RA to identify, analyse, and add resources to the KB relating to commodification. Elizabeth Peterson will continue this important work.
Current and new initiatives:

Early 2012. On Commodification and its Effects on Tangible and Intangible Heritage.
Symposium and exhibition. Liu Institute for Global Issues.

April 2020

Sven Ouzman sourcing Masters-level student to conduct San IP project.

Other (TBA – suggestions welcome).
Potential research topics – An invitation to join the WG:
The co-chairs welcome those interested in issues of commodification (including but not limited to those outlined below) to become a member of the WG and take part in its activities.
 The role of governments and legislation in aiding/abetting or hindering the commodification of the past and adjudicating disputes around cultural heritage. For example, South African heritage legislation maintains that any representation of a
‘heritage resource’ – is the property of the state – including mediums such as tourist’s and archaeologist’s photographs.
 The meaning of ‘priceless’ (or ‘price-less’) in terms of museum practice. Should
Curators simply refuse to have collections appraised as cash cannot replace the irreplaceable; or should the appraisal be for what it would cost to source another such artefact/collection; even if this runs the risk of supporting a trade in antiquities?
 Is the trade in antiquities desirable? Where do we draw the line as to what is an
‘antiquity’ and what is a ‘commodity’?
 Can commodification of the past be used to benefit – in a variety of senses – disempowered communities whose cultural heritage has been alienated from them?
What kinds of partnerships are being developed to ensure such benefits are effectively yielded?
 What are the various ways in which Indigenous peoples are using the laws of the countries they live in to regulate the commodification of their heritage? To what extent are these laws compatible with the provisions of their Indigenous legal systems?
 What happens with human remains – ancient DNA is being looked to as a code to many cures, bodies such as Gunther van Hagen’s ‘Bodyworlds’ make enormous profit out of being ghouls, and archaeologists specialise in these ‘scarce’ commodities’.
 How do international events - such as World Fairs, Olympic Games, World Cups and others - precipitate and set precedents for the commodification of the heritage of host communities?