Becoming “Traditional”

During the 1990s and early years of the 2000s, the tree commonly known as neem became a powerful symbol of traditional knowledge, which was contrasted with “biopiracy,” a term coined by activists to describe the appropriation of natural resources and associated knowledge from the Global South. This resulted from high-profile campaigns to rescind two patents held by an American chemical company, W. R. Grace, on neem derivatives for use in biopesticides. Activists and the media highlighted neem’s uses in India, representing Grace’s patents as the corporate plunder of traditional knowledge. This article historicizes the controversy and considers how plant histories relate to intellectual property (IP) debates. The neem case popularized the concept of “biopiracy,” but claims about neem were used in different and even conflicting ways. While activists critiqued the expansion of IP rights to include patents on living things, the case was used by some in India to justify neem-related patents and to extend state jurisdiction over traditional knowledge. The activism of the 1990s also influenced historical work, inspiring studies of colonial appropriations of natural knowledge. Many such works focus on cinchona, the source of quinine. Neem and cinchona have intertwined histories with different endpoints. As cinchona became “modern” and “global,” neem was increasingly viewed as “local” and “traditional,” even while spreading across warmer parts of the world and becoming the object of scientific study. While cinchona is often used to epitomize colonial appropriations of indigenous knowledge, neem represents a different story in which appropriation was partial and the tree was reclaimed as “traditional” in new contexts.