Although the elusive character of intellectual property’s subject matter might have been a productive dilemma for the development of legal doctrine, the specific mutability of this form of property has also made it into a particularly contested and sensitive area where different arguments about its legitimations collide. It is in this sense that intellectual property has been a canvas on which identities have been contested; economic and intellectual capital created and accumulated; as well as knowledges and identities willfully delineated, trans- formed and managed as ‘assets.’ Intellectual property regimes do not only commoditise knowledge but also transform the very processes by which it is generated, understood and valued.

The workshop brings together scholars from law, science studies, anthropology, philosophy and sociology to explore many questions concerning the role of intellectual property as a specific mode of governance of intangible knowledge at this present moment of time. Beyond understanding intellectual property as legal techniques of appropriation, the workshop will explore intellectual property and its broader contemporary political, social and cultural meanings: its relation to economic rationality; as a specific mode of governance of different epistemes; and as concrete practices of industrialisation and valorisation.

Programme: https://ipknowledgeworkshop.wordpress.com/

Contact and details: j.a.bellido@kent.ac.uk or h.y.kang@kent.ac.uk

Supported by the Kent Law School (Canterbury, Kent) and the Information Law & Policy Centre (IALS, London)

20 May 2016, Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, Russell Square, London