The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Sharing Creative Works:ccNL translation. Flickr/CC HQ. Some rights reserved.As the global information economy intensifies, voices from the global South have been calling for more coordinated and deliberate work to defend what is known as the global “knowledge commons.” Movements resisting international trade agreements and the patenting of “intellectual property” have been inspired and guided by activists in places like Brazil, India, and South Africa, where strong resistance to TRIPS--or trade-related intellectual property rights agreement--helped keep life-saving medications more affordable and challenged the commodification of knowledge.
At a workshop of scholar-activists during the World Social Forum in 2005, participants from South America chided those of us in the global North who have (mostly unthinkingly) contributed to the enclosure of the knowledge commons by publishing our work in commercial journals that are only accessible to paid subscribers. As our colleagues observed, much of the scholarly work published in the global North is inaccessible to scholars in the South, and this denies these folks access to information that can advance public health and other shared goods. In addition, it excludes the voices of Southern and less privileged scholars from engaging in academic debates. Many in the global North such as recent graduates, public educators, independent scholars, and contingent faculty are also finding themselves on the losing side of this information divide.
