Indigenizing Intellectual Property: Tribally-Based Definition and Protections for Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Resources.

Abstract

This community action research project created a Tribally-based definition and recommendations for protections of the collective intellectual property on behalf of the Spokane Tribe of Indians. Qualitative data was collected from focus groups and interviews with adult Tribal members, close allies, program directors, and Tribal scholars. The qualitative data followed an indigenous research methodology pathway from the inception of the project through the analysis, which incorporated elder co-researchers from the Tribe through every stage. The data suggested a definition for collective intellectual property. The Tribe’s dialect of the Interior Salish language provided an effective word, sʔelḱʷmn (s-elkwhe-mn; inheritance/keepsake), to define the responsibility the people express in relationship to the cultural resources, concepts, and materials contained by the definition. The resulting definition is inclusive of the ideas generated in focus group and interview responses to three sets of questions. The first question set generated lists used to create the definition. The second question set generated concepts that were incorporated into a proposal for the Tribe to consider as a means to safeguard the sʔelḱʷmn of the people. The third set consisted of one question, “what else?” and followed an informal debrief designed to inform and extend the discussion further toward decolonizing and indigenizing the meaning and practices of Tribal intellectual property. The recommendation for protection of the sʔelḱʷmn was modeled after community advisory boards and delivers at least three essential functions. First, it provides a way to interact with the collective intellectual inherited practices, materials, and knowledges of the Tribe through meaningful engagement with the Tribal people and programs. Second, it requires workshop study of cultural competency that primarily challenges privilege, entitlement, and fosters a healthy sense of belonging. Finally, it creates space for, and attention to, products of previous, current, and future interactions with the Tribe’s collective intellectual sʔelḱʷmn. The definition and recommendations were introduced to the Spokane Tribal Business Council, the decision-making body of the Tribal government. This began an ongoing conversation and project for this Tribe as it moves into the future through selfdetermination in a way that makes sense given its’ past, present, and future story.