THE PROBLEM OF EPISTEMIC EXTRATIVISM AND OF ETHNOBIOPIRACY: CHALLENGES FOR THE PROMOTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract

Faced with contemporary demands in the field of the fight for rights and, especially, in the face of environmental devastation that forces us to rethink the way in which the hegemonic Western world is structured, it is possible to notice a transformation in the themes of scientific research in universities, which have been seeking a dialogue intercultural and the recovery of ancestral knowledge. In this context, several questions have arisen regarding the way in which this dialogue occurs, in order to understand whether the inclusion of non-hegemonic knowledge promotes structural transformations or is characterized as a functional change for neoliberalism and its colonial logic, which comes being called “epistemic extractivism” or “knowledge piracy”. With the aim of presenting the problem of epistemic extractivism, this article will initially discuss the problem of ethnobiopiracy as the highest expression of this extractive mentality, and, in the second movement of the article, it will raise ethical-political challenges so that scientific research can to carry out intercultural dialogue promoting human rights. We will argue that to break with epistemic extractivism it is necessary to recognize different forms of production and expression of knowledge as legitimate, as well as recognizing their knowers as legitimate, that is, as subjects of knowledge and rights, with attention to their struggles and demands and with retribution for their teachings.