Raj Patel will discuss how contemporary rules about intellectual property continue to exploit indigenous communities and how state power is a vital part of this expropriation. The example of the Potato Park in the Peruvian Andes demonstrates how this expropriation can be resisted. Understanding this resistance as an act of decolonization offers useful lessons for seed-saving and sustainable agriculture, far beyond the park’s boundaries.

Patel,  the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing, is a Research Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, a Visiting Professor at Rhodes University in South Africa, and a Fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy. His current writing and film project is “Generation Food.”

More information online.

Location: University of Texas, Sid Richardson Hall, Hackett Room (SRH 1.313), 2300 Red River, Austin, 78712