國立高雄大學圖資館 |

Language: English

Back

Bitter roots: African science and t...

Harvard University.

Bitter roots: African science and the search for healing plants in Ghana, 1885--2005.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Bitter roots: African science and the search for healing plants in Ghana, 1885--2005.
Author:	Osseo-Asare, Abena Dove Agyepoma.
Description:	302 p.
Notes:	Adviser: Allan M. Brandt.
Notes:	Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-05, Section: A, page: 1932.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International66-05A.
Subject:	History of Science.
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3173997
ISBN:	9780542115431

Bitter roots: African science and the search for healing plants in Ghana, 1885--2005.
Osseo-Asare, Abena Dove Agyepoma.

Bitter roots: African science and the search for healing plants in Ghana, 1885--2005. - 302 p.

Adviser: Allan M. Brandt.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Harvard University, 2005.

Bitter Roots combines colonial botanical and administrative records with oral testimonies from individuals active in pharmacological research and traditional healing in Ghana. The first half of the project analyzes scientific research on poisonous plants including Strophanthus hispidus, and efforts of African herbalists to gain legal recognition under colonial rule. The second half of the dissertation considers intellectual property conflicts that arose as increasing numbers of Ghanaians were able to position themselves as scientists in antithesis to "traditional" plant specialists. A case study of the fight to commercialize Cryptolepis sanginolenta details emerging conflicts between healers, Ghanaian scientists and foreign researchers.

ISBN: 9780542115431Subjects--Topical Terms:

212526
History of Science.

Bitter roots: African science and the search for healing plants in Ghana, 1885--2005.
LDR:03544nmm _2200313 _450 001 170674
005 20061228142215.5
008 090528s2005 eng d
020 $a 9780542115431
035 $a 00242704
040 $a UnM $c UnM
100 0 $a Osseo-Asare, Abena Dove Agyepoma. $3 244702
245 1 0 $a Bitter roots: African science and the search for healing plants in Ghana, 1885--2005.
300 $a 302 p.
500 $a Adviser: Allan M. Brandt.
500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-05, Section: A, page: 1932.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--Harvard University, 2005.
520 # $a Bitter Roots combines colonial botanical and administrative records with oral testimonies from individuals active in pharmacological research and traditional healing in Ghana. The first half of the project analyzes scientific research on poisonous plants including Strophanthus hispidus, and efforts of African herbalists to gain legal recognition under colonial rule. The second half of the dissertation considers intellectual property conflicts that arose as increasing numbers of Ghanaians were able to position themselves as scientists in antithesis to "traditional" plant specialists. A case study of the fight to commercialize Cryptolepis sanginolenta details emerging conflicts between healers, Ghanaian scientists and foreign researchers.
520 # $a During the past fifteen years, there has been increasing discussion of how global intellectual property regimes should be redesigned in the face of developments such as music-sharing on the world wide web, or exorbitant costs for HIV antiretroviral medication in impoverished settings. By tracing the economy of scientific representation and information exchange in Africa over the longue duree, this work develops a framework for describing proprietary knowledge that will both refine current debates and provide new directions for future international policies.
520 # $a For generations, people living along the Western coast of Africa have experimented with potent plants, incorporating a wide variety of species into regional therapeutic regimes. This dissertation analyzes the transformation of these traditional plant-based therapies in the West African nation of Ghana from the late nineteenth century. Through an analysis of interactions between scientists, healers and other plant experts vying for control of plant information, it develops a model for understanding proprietary knowledge management in an African context.
520 # $a The study argues that the potential of plants to both heal and kill has deeply informed the translation of ethnobotanical knowledge in modern Africa, leaving it open to popular distrust, governmental disinterest, and international biopiracy. Natural resource stakeholders in Ghana have presented alternate styles of knowledge and research technique as literally and figuratively poisoned to sustain control of information with economic, cultural, and scientific value. From colonial anxiety over poisoned arrows, to popular debates over toxicity in herbal preparations, a discourse of poison has surrounded tropical flora and their agents.
590 $a School code: 0084.
650 # 0 $a History of Science. $3 212526
650 # 0 $a History, African. $3 227026
650 # 0 $a Anthropology, Cultural. $3 212460
690 $a 0326
690 $a 0331
690 $a 0585
710 0 # $a Harvard University. $3 212445
773 0 # $g 66-05A. $t Dissertation Abstracts International
790 $a 0084
790 1 0 $a Brandt, Allan M., $e advisor
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2005
856 4 0 $u http://libsw.nuk.edu.tw:81/login?url=http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3173997 $z http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3173997