Published
Jun 25, 2024Page count
214 pagesISBN
978-1529233667Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Jun 25, 2024Page count
214 pagesISBN
978-1529233674Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Jun 25, 2024Page count
214 pagesISBN
978-1529233674Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
At the End of Property
Recent decades have witnessed the creation of new types of property systems, ranging from data ownership to national control over genetic resources. This trend has significant implications for wealth distribution and our understanding of who can own what.
This book explores the idea of ownership in the realm of plant breeding, revealing how plants have been legally and materially transformed into property. It highlights the controversial aspects of turning seeds, plants and genes into property and how this endangers the viability of the seed industry.
Examining ownership not simply as a legal concept, but as a bundle of laws, practices and technologies, this is a valuable contribution that will interest scholars of intellectual property studies, the anthropology of markets, science and technology studies and related fields.
“This book is accomplished, erudite and provocative. It is a brilliant addition to an ever more important literature on what property means to us all.” Sarah Franklin, University of Cambridge
"This is a rich exploration of the crisis of the propertisation of plants. Braun argues for a more nuanced and cultural understanding of the social life of plants and property.” Jay Sanderson, University of the Sunshine Coast
Veit Braun is Research Associate in the Institute for Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: From rights to scripts: Articulating property
Chapter 3: Property and the market
Chapter 4: Re-inventing plants
Chapter 5: The values of Patents
Chapter 6: Too much property
Chapter 7: At the end of property
