Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Intellectual Property and the Connection of Intangible and Tangible Commodities in Taiwan and China

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Columbia University doctoral student, Matthew E. West, with the guidance of Dr. Myron L. Cohen, will undertake anthropological research on the process and practice of innovation. The focus of the research will be an ethnography of the production and circulation of different forms of intellectual property during the design and manufacture of a green technology product. The research will be carried out primarily in a single green technology company's Taiwanese design and licensing branch, with additional research in their Chinese manufacturing site. This research is important because it will provide a better understanding of the everyday practice of intellectual property, a kind of property with its associated practicies that is at the foundation of the global knowledge economy and that facilitates a global division of labor between knowledge and manufacturing. The researcher will focus on the connections between intellectual property and the designs, licenses, and other products through which people normally encounter intellectual property. He will follow the product from the creation and licensing of its intellectual components through to its final manufacture. Data collection methods will include participant observation fieldwork in the company's Taiwanese and Chinese sites; semi-structured interviews with company employees and other industry experts; and the collection and analysis of related documentary materials. This project will contribute to social science theory of high technology businesses, complementing other research on open-source software and indigenous cultural property. It also will provide a needed micro-level perspective on the variety of connections that tie new intangible objects of ownership to tangible commodities, and so contribute to the ongoing challenges of creating policies for managing intellectual property. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.