Epistemological Issue

Nicholas, G. P. and Bannister, K. P. (2010) Copyrighting the Past? In R. W. Prencel and S.A. Mrozowski (eds.), Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, 2nd. Ed., pp. 593-617. In Nicholas and Bannister’s article, they had introduced the emerging conflicting issues with regards to the direction of intellectual property rights in research works. There was discussion between the archaeologists who does the study for information and the Indigenous communities who are tremendously concern in the research. The argumentation follows the acquisition of protection from both factions in doing such sort of researches. There were various issues being confronted and challenged by archaeologist as well as Indigenous peoples. It poses the appropriation of their needs to certain aspects that create another conflict to the other. It is thus necessary to make an attempt to present the fragmentary issues in a more complex representation providing solution in a holistic approach addressing issues regarding the use of intellectual property rights. The emergence of the issue initially source from the problem of establishing the range or scope of the definition used in intellectual property rights. For archaeologists, the current status in their research working is somehow afflictive on their part. This is mainly because of the challenge that they are still restricted on the acquisition of some information necessary to conduct study. The problem exists on the protection granted to Indigenous peoples that limits them to do research. Archaeologists attempt to target the justification of those communities restricting or limiting them on acquisition of information they needed for study. The justification goes by the reasoning that there is little relevance, importance or benefits that will be bestowed to their community thus being protected by all sorts of intervention. The reasoning also follows with the perception that the efforts made on research works ends on the