TY - JOUR

T1 - Industrializing nature, knowledge, and labour

T2 - the political economy of bioprospecting in Madagascar

AU - Neimark, Benjamin

PY - 2012/9

Y1 - 2012/9

N2 - This article provides a new way of analyzing and defining contemporary bioprospecting under emerging frameworks of neoliberal conservation. I document how bioprospecting has changed over time on the island-nation of Madagascar due to shifts in environmental governance. The most significant change includes efforts to speed up and industrialize the production of new drugs derived from nature. This has been accomplished through the switching over to rational collection strategies that employ new geo-referencing technologies, global networks of herbarium archives, and high-technology rapid screening methods. Results show that nature is re-constituted, traditional knowledge is rendered inefficient, and labour is mechanized within sites of production. This study demonstrates how changes in bioprospecting alter the way Malagasy scientists and local resource users participate in the practice and diminish their decision making power over natural resources. These developments, in turn, cause some Malagasy scientists, researchers and administrators to question their participation in bioprospecting projects and reveal that current natural resource policies of extraction, commercialization and benefit-sharing face many challenges.

AB - This article provides a new way of analyzing and defining contemporary bioprospecting under emerging frameworks of neoliberal conservation. I document how bioprospecting has changed over time on the island-nation of Madagascar due to shifts in environmental governance. The most significant change includes efforts to speed up and industrialize the production of new drugs derived from nature. This has been accomplished through the switching over to rational collection strategies that employ new geo-referencing technologies, global networks of herbarium archives, and high-technology rapid screening methods. Results show that nature is re-constituted, traditional knowledge is rendered inefficient, and labour is mechanized within sites of production. This study demonstrates how changes in bioprospecting alter the way Malagasy scientists and local resource users participate in the practice and diminish their decision making power over natural resources. These developments, in turn, cause some Malagasy scientists, researchers and administrators to question their participation in bioprospecting projects and reveal that current natural resource policies of extraction, commercialization and benefit-sharing face many challenges.

KW - Bioprospecting

KW - Convention on biological diversity

KW - Neoliberal conservation

KW - Natural resources

KW - Madagascar

U2 - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.05.003

DO - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.05.003

M3 - Journal article

VL - 43

SP - 580

EP - 590

JO - Geoforum

JF - Geoforum

SN - 0016-7185

IS - 5

ER -