Tratamiento de la altura en la georreferenciación

In library science and in the area of archives and museums, there have been increasing concerns about ensuring that local communities participate in creating and controlling information, and thus empower themselves. A number of the issues revolve around authorship, ownership and access rights.

2.6.2.1 Authors hip

In the Western tradition, “author” generally refers to the person or corporation who created the material in question. In contrast, in the realm of indigenous knowledge, authors are often considered to be communities (Shilton & Srinivasan, 2007). ALA Office of Information Policy (2010) suggests that librarians have a responsibility to identify authorship and to recognise that local document collections belong to the original creators. Similarly, Mathiesen (2008) states that sometimes a group of people can be considered the author of a feature of culture or an artefact.

Further, Shilton & Srinivasan (2007) indicate that, if researchers consider authorship to belong to cross-cultures or multiple communities, it could be affected by provenance, or the original area of the creator. For example, when the Tribal PEACE project created an online community hub, the authors were members of the Kumeyaay, Luiseno, Cupeno, and Cahilla tribes in San Diego County. In this case of a cross-cultural community, it was difficult to clarify who the author was

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in the Western sense because they were all authors of the entire content, not of particular parts of it or as individuals.

Furthermore, identifying authorship is not only a challenge because of the need to choose the correct person or group of people, but because a lack of sufficient documents and evidence causes difficulty (Phra Direk Wachirayano (Injan), 2002). In some cases, when considered from a cultural or traditional perspective, authorship seems to be relatively unimportant, particularly compared to what Feather and Sturges (1997) define as the series of histories, stories and contexts surrounding a culture and tradition. For example, a PLM generally includes on the last page or as a colophon the name of the inscriber or the host who donated money to reproduce it. The inscription and blessing statement are also found there, too (PhraDirek Wachirayano (Injan), 2002).

In the West, an individual creates an art object and has the right to give or sell it to another. In other contexts, such as where a whole community is seen as a collective author, such material cannot be sold or given away, except by some appropriate process of joint agreement. The section below considers the ownership of PLM collections.

2.6.2.2 Ownershi p

Ownership is complex, whether private, collective or communal, in the case of indigenous knowledge (Maina, 2012). In Western professional librarianship practice the focus is on the private owner, whereas in the Lanna cultural context, PLM ownership could rest with society, with an individual, or with an organisation. It is difficult to clarify ownership as individual because local people have donated PLMs to monasteries and, therefore, the PLMs belong to the monasteries. Many of the manuscript inscriptions and copied PLMs are donated to monasteries in the Lanna region because Lanna people have a strong faith in Buddhism. They believe making their own inscriptions or hiring someone to inscribe the Buddha’s teachings onto palm leaves and donating them to monasteries to be a powerful means of making merit, similar to the building of a statue of the Buddha (PhraDirek Wachirayano (Injan), 2002). Thus it is difficult to manage traditional knowledge in libraries and archives, not only because of the problem of identifying the owner but also because there is an issue concerning gaining the permission of the owner in relation to storing and publishing traditional knowledge.

Moreover, intellectual property rights and copyright are significant issues in relation to an owner’s ability to control and share traditional knowledge (Maina, 2012). There are many examples of indigenous people’s concerns about this issue. Indian chiefs and 54 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) held a conference entitled “Traditional Resource Rights” in 2000 to protect indigenous knowledge at international level. The WIPO (World Intellectual

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Property Organization) established an international committee on genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore in 2002 (Hafstein, 2004), stating that, even though intellectual property rights, which included copyright, patents and industrial design protection, provided significant protection, the owners of original and new products were being overlooked. Moreover, there is a significant problem of ownership in developing countries which have been invaded by developed countries. Hafstein (2004) also suggests that many owners in developing countries have their creations or collections but are not aware of their rights because they are illiterate, and so do not safeguard their intellectual property.

Another problem is that developed countries sometimes claim the creations of developing countries as their intellectual property in order to make profit for themselves. For example, Thailand, a developing country with plentiful natural resources and wisdom, has, according to SoyTong (2007), had many resources and much wisdom stolen by Japan and America. For example, jasmine rice, the most famous Thai rice, was appropriated in 1998 and then developed by American researchers; it was registered under the trade name “Jastima” and said to have been planted in Texas. Similarly, Mangosteen, the most exported fruit in the world, was patented through the method of extracting the juice for a beverage. Examples of a products stolen by Japan include: 1) Plaunoi (the Thai plant used to treat dermatitis and reduce gastric injury induced by ischaemia), which was registered with the WTO under the name “Plaunotol” and produced as a medicine called “Kelnac” in 1983; 2) KwaoKreu, a Thai herb used for cosmetic treatment, was patented through an extraction method in 2002; and 3) Rusidatton (Thai traditional exercise), the only form of such knowledge, can be traced back to Thailand (SoyTong, 2007).

As developing countries have lower levels of education and income, their intellectual property rights have been taken from them by more powerful countries using legal means. The products developed countries desire most involve plant genetics; trying to claim rights over plant genetics is called “bio-piracy”. It has already been seen in many developing countries, including Thailand (SoyTong, 2007). The developed countries take seeds from developing countries, but then subject them to new technologies. They improve plant breeding and this becomes bio-piracy. This then places restrictions on the original owner-nations in terms of research and development of their own resources and also limits their ability to export such resources to other countries (SoyTong, 2007). PLMs contain much traditional knowledge about herbal medicine which could be valuable to pharmaceutical industries. In northern Thailand, some people have decided to protect their ancestors’ herbal plant wisdom through patents calling PLMs the “Memory of the World”. Over the past 30 years, 27 Thai medicinal plant recipes have been registered in both international and national patents by Professor Dr. Jiradej and Professor Dr. Aranya Manosroi (Manosé Research Center, 2014).

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Communities should create their own policies to protect their cultural and intellectual property and traditional knowledge. In other words, they need to claim ownership of their cultural resources. Even though some communities have not yet created such policies, they still need to review the matter and make an agreement or sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with researchers and cultural institutions about what should be carried out regarding collection management during any research process (Maina, 2012). Anderson (2005) supports the benefits of such an agreement between researcher, institution and community which not only responds to community needs but also establishes a new relationship between all parties. For example, there was an effective collaboration between researchers and the Galiwin’ku people in Australia to ensure the intellectual property rights of the Australian Galiwin’ku Indigenous Knowledge Center.

2.6.2.3 Access ri ghts

In terms of access rights, ALA Office for Information Technology Policy (2007) and Becvar and Srinivasan (2009) show how librarians enforce access controls: for example, a user cannot borrow a book without first paying to be a member of a university library. This concept derives from Western information institutions, which tend to ignore or are careless about respecting community beliefs regarding how collections should be managed and sometimes employ access restrictions or rules. Therefore, researchers and service providers should respect community beliefs and follow any restrictions regarding whether the community wants to distribute its assets to the public or keep them private, but this is not always the case (Becvar & Srinivasan, 2009).

According to the Digital Library of Northern Thai Manuscripts (2016), the committees managing PLMs in Lanna use various different access levels to make manuscripts available to users, one of which is access through an online portal. Western committees agree to provide all PLM documents online, while northern Thai committees at Chiang Mai University Library limit access to herbal medicine content to prevent foreigners from taking advantage (Digital Library of Northern Thai Manuscripts, 2016).

In traditional societies, it is common for there to be a hierarchical circulation of knowledge. This implies that access to cultural knowledge is restricted by gender, age, ancestry, clan, and status.

People occupying different hierarchical levels gain different rights and access priorities (Becvar

& Srinivasan, 2009, p. 422). For example, among the Wamurungu Australian Aboriginal people, an ancestral song series can be accessed only by women (Becvar & Srinivasan, 2009, p. 430). To uncover the reason behind this, an archivist needs to investigate specific cultural contexts, including traditions, beliefs and ancestral views. These might create restrictions on access to knowledge. However, in terms of transmitting local knowledge to futures generations, such knowledge could soon disappear because of gender restrictions, which then leads to an ethical dilemma between preserving the community’s values and transmitting material cultural so that it

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endures. This situation creates two possibilities for information service providers, with the first being to follow existing hierarchical community values and beliefs, and the second to show greater concern for a fading culture. This could be a serious dilemma, one that involves a conflict with contemporary values about gender. On the one hand, it is important to want to respect traditional beliefs and diversity; on the other hand, it is difficult to respect gender discrimination.

Finding a solution is thus problematic. It seems better to give priority to the community to decide about indigenous culture because it involves an ethical decision, such as giving precedence to women while being open-minded about modernisation and maintaining significant characteristics of their culture.

Nakata et al. (2005, p.16) add that restricting access to certain knowledge also engages with “age, gender, initiate status, role, and specification restrictions.” For example, in terms of cultural respect, during an interview in the Zuni project, Becvar and Srinivasan (2009) indicate that, when the discussion turned to mysterious religious topics or local gossip, issues which could be excluded from the research, the researcher put the pen down to show respect to cultural sensitivity and gain the trust of the community. A similar issue arises in in Lanna culture, in that some traditions are gender restricted. For example: 1) “Klong Sabadchai”, the folk drum instrument which was used only by men to create a good omen for warriors in times of war and to celebrate past victories is, at present, performed to entertain people at festivals and in tourist places, as a cultural show; and 2) “Fon Sao Mai”, a local dance for women involving delicate and graceful movements, is today performed by both men and women (Information Technology Service Center (ITSC), 2013; Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2017). Even though they will increase opportunities to transfer traditional culture to younger generations without gender differences or restrictions, the shows have to be carefully considered in term of appropriateness.

PLMs also face the appropriateness dilemma. In the past, men could touch PLMs and were allowed to learn and write LannaTham script. In contrast, women were restricted to weaving wrappers for PLMs and were not permitted to touch PLMs or to study LannaTham scripts for inscribing them onto palm leaves. However, although both genders had different roles, they had the same goal: to support Buddhism and gain merit. On the other hand, it is a positive sign that there is no gender limitation on access to PLMs at present. There is still, however, a debate about whether women should have equal opportunities to manage PLMs or whether gender restrictions preserve a key element of the tradition.

2.6.3 Summary

The management of indigenous knowledge in libraries, archives and museums involves three core elements: authorship, ownership and access rights. In the indigenous concept of authorship, it is difficult to identify an author because there is generally more than one author of the content, and

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authorship is not seen as belonging to an individual. Moreover, the names of authors cannot often be clarified due to lack of evidence. These issues lead to another in relation to ownership, in terms of how an author can be considered the owner of the content and claim benefit from the product.

Another concern is who the appropriate owner should be: a collection is usually thought to belong to the community. The need to protect indigenous knowledge by classifying it as intellectual property has emerged, due to the fact that Western countries have stolen local knowledge from developing countries. For example, the USA and Japan claimed Thai plants (“Plaunoi” and

“KwaoKreu”) and Thai traditional exercise (“Rusidatton”) as their property by copyrighting them.

In terms of access rights, indigenous people have their own belief in hierarchical access restrictions by gender, age, ancestry, clan and status, which local people have always respected and followed. Nowadays, hierarchical access is less prominent, due to recent cultural changes.

This raises the issue as to whether it is better to adapt to wider cultural changes and be more flexible or to respect and retain traditional access restrictions. In terms of the management of indigenous knowledge, it is important to listen to the community voice and enable communities to deal with their own cultural collections, as far as possible.