Defining Traditional Knowledge: Lessons from Cultural Property

My contributions to this symposium stem not from a knowledge of intellectual property or "traditional knowledge," but rather from my thinking and writing on the repatriation and protection of the cultural property of indigenous people, particularly the cultural property of Native Americans. I should add that while many of the contributions to this symposium were prescriptive, the following comments are best described as cautionary and critical. I do not provide concrete suggestions for how to protect "traditional knowledge," but there are some lessons to be learned from our experiences in the protection and repatriation of cultural property.
My primary focus is on the term "traditional." In the cultural property context, the comparable term is "cultural." What do we mean by these phrases and how do these terms influence our understanding of the culture and politics of indigenous peoples? In this very brief paper, I will discuss some of the assumptions embedded in our understanding of these words as reflected in the repatriation of Native American cultural property.