• Dept. III
• Cooperation & Communication
• Annapurna Mamidipudi Gauri Nori Vivek Oak Dagmar Schäfer Uzramma Verena Braun Stephanie Hood
• Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property

A novel communications project that seeks to challenge how we view knowledge and its ownership.

“Knowing” and “owning” seem like two separate things in our modern globalized world: “Knowing” is often seen as scientific knowledge expressed; “owning” through law, such as intellectual property. In the kn/own/able project, we contend that this division is artificial and exacerbates social inequalities. This issue spans academic and wider social spheres, with impacts across (de)colonialism, heritage, law, environmental change, science development and more. The project’s goal is to demonstrate how “knowing” and “owning” are indivisible, or kn/own/able. From here, we seek to spark further discussion, empower researchers with new interdisciplinary methods, and instigate social change around the unity of knowledge and ownership.