Vandana Shiva E-Book

Vandana Shiva

• Herausgeber: Hatje Cantz Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: E-Books
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 36

Beschreibung

 Die indische Physikerin und Aktivistin Vandana Shiva (*1952) legt anhand nüchtern präsentierter Fakten dar, wie Konzerne die Kontrolle über unser Leben erlangen. Die Patentierung von Leben – von Bakterien über Pflanzen bis hin zu Klontieren mit bestimmten genetischen Eigenschaften – führt zu seiner Verdinglichung und Kommerzialisierung. Ein Abkommen der Welthandelsorganisation erlaubt es Konzernen auf alles nur Erdenkliche Patente anzumelden. Eine der Folgen ist Biopiraterie, die Reklamierung teils uralter traditioneller Verwendungen und Züchtungen von Pflanzen als eigene »Erfindung«, wie Shiva anhand der Beispiele des Niembaumes und des Basmatireises zeigt. Die Monopolisierung von Saatgut hat in weiten Teilen Indiens die Bauern in die Abhängigkeit der Konzerne gezwungen und ihnen die Lebensgrundlage entzogen.      Sprache: Deutsch/Englisch 

Leseprobe

100 Notes – 100 Thoughts / 100 Notizen – 100 Gedanken

Nº012: Vandana Shiva

The Corporate Control of Life / Die Kontrolle von Konzernen über das Leben

dOCUMENTA (13), 9/6/2012 – 16/9/2012

Artistic Director / Künstlerische Leiterin: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Agent, Member of Core Group, Head of Department /

Agentin, Mitglied der Kerngruppe, Leiterin der Abteilung: Chus Martínez

Head of Publications / Leiterin der Publikationsabteilung: Bettina Funcke

Managing Editor / Redaktion und Lektorat: Katrin Sauerländer

English Copyediting / Englisches Lektorat: Philomena Mariani

Proofreading / Korrektorat: Sam Frank, Cordelia Marten

Translation / Übersetzung: Barbara Hess

Graphic Design and E-Book Implementation / Grafische Gestaltung und E-Book-Produktion: Leftloft

Production / Verlagsherstellung: Stefanie Langner

© 2011 documenta und Museum Fridericianum Veranstaltungs-GmbH, Kassel; Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern; Vandana Shiva

Illustrations / Abbildungen: p. / S. 1: Fridericianum, September 1941 (detail / Detail), Photohaus C. Eberth, Waldkappel; Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, Landesbibliothek und Murhardsche Bibliothek der Stadt Kassel; p. / S. 2: © Navdanya International

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ISBN 978-3-7757-3041-9 (E-Book)

ISBN 978-3-7757-2861-4 (Print)

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Vandana Shiva

The Corporate Control of Life /

Die Kontrolle von Konzernen über das Leben

Vandana Shiva

The Corporate Control of Life

Life in all its variety and diversity is rapidly becoming the “property” of corporations through patents and “intellectual property rights.”

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. Life, however, is not an invention. We can modify life-forms, we can manipulate living organisms. But we do not create life.

The first patent on life was granted to General Electric for a genetically engineered bacterium. In 1971, General Electric and one of its employees, Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, applied for a U.S. patent on a genetically engineered Pseudomonas bacterium. Taking plasmids from three kinds of bacteria, Chakrabarty transplanted them into a fourth. As he explained, “I simply shuffled genes, changing bacteria that already existed.” Chakrabarty was granted his patent on the grounds that the microorganism was not a product of nature, but his invention and, therefore, patentable. As Andrew Kimbrell, a leading U.S. lawyer, recounts, “In coming to its precedent-shattering decision, the court seemed unaware that the inventor himself had characterized his ‘creation’ of the microbe as simply ‘shifting’ genes, not creating life.” On such slippery grounds, the first patent on life was granted, and, in spite of the exclusion of plants and animals from patenting under U.S. law, the United States has since rushed to grant patents on all kinds of life-forms.

Referring to the landmark Chakrabarty case, in which the court found that he had “produced a new bacterium with markedly different characteristics than any found in nature,” Robert Key Dismukes, study director for the Committee on Vision of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, said:

Let us at least get one thing straight: Ananda Chakrabarty did not create a new form of life; he merely intervened in the normal processes by which strains of bacteria exchange genetic information, to produce a new strain with an altered metabolic pattern. “His” bacterium lives and reproduces itself under the forces that guide all cellular life. Recent advances in recombinant DNA techniques allow more direct biochemical manipulation of bacterial genes than Chakrabarty employed, but these too are only modulations of biological processes. We are incalculably far away from being able to create life de novo, and for that I am profoundly grateful. The argument that the bacterium is Chakrabarty’s handiwork and not nature’s wildly exaggerates human power and displays the same hubris and ignorance of biology that have had such devastating impact on the ecology of our planet.