Articles de revues sur le sujet « Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization »

This article examines continental, sub-regional and national initiatives in the formulation of intellectual property policy Africa. The article is divided into seven parts. The first looks at the relationship between IP and economic development. The second part examines the role of IP regional integration and trade. The third part looks at African regional trade agreements. Next, the article surveys the activities of sub-regional IP systems in Africa: the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and the Organisation Africaine de la Propriété (OAPI). The fifth part looks at the recent formation of the Pan African Intellectual Property Organization (PAIPO) and its relationship with ARIPO and OAPI. The sixth part gives a brief overview of the efforts made in designing national IP polices. The concluding section summarizes the IP policy-making process in Africa.

AbstractIntellectual property rights protection is at the forefront of some of the major controversies regarding the impact of globalization. African countries have in recent years participated to an unprecedented degree in both international and bilateral initiatives dealing with intellectual property. The negotiating positions have been varied and, from a regional perspective, have not been coherent at some levels, with different countries advancing different positions. African countries have adopted regional integration as a strategy to deal with the challenges of globalization. Regional integration is believed to increase negotiating capacities and competitiveness in global trade. It is also believed to improve access to foreign technology. The African Union is facilitating the establishment of a continental intellectual property body. Accordingly, the main aim of this article is to discuss the establishment of the Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization in line with the African Union's vision for regional integration.

The development of the concept of farmers' rights in the Food and Agriculture Organization, and its adoption by the African Union as a counterbalance to the private property rights of plant breeders, highlights the divisiveness of the question of ownership in biodiversity and biotechnology. This article examines the development of the African Model Law, a regional regime intended to promote indigenous control over local biodiversity. The principal argument is that key nongovernmental organizations were able to draw on African efforts and concerns regarding conceptions of private property rights embodied in international agreements, framing the question of farmers' rights in a way that spoke to the African experience. Farmers' rights thus came to be a focal point for African negotiators at international discussions on intellectual property rights and biodiversity, enabling Africa to take a key role in the articulation of alternatives to the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement.

Western nations, through international treaties and bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and economic and political pressures on many governments, are to a large degree succeeding in strengthening protection of intellectual property rights as they are understood mainly within the western context. Framing the debate within Locke‘s theory of natural law, the paper discusses the extent to which this strengthening of intellectual property rights is appropriate for developing countries, especially within the African context.

This article examines the prospects for the development of intellectual property law in national jurisdictions (Russian Federation, Republic of Indonesia, Federative Republic of Brazil, African countries and others), as well as the place of intellectual property in the system of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The main areas of activity of the World Intellectual Property Organization in the context of achieving these goals, the results of the implementation and use of digital systems and artificial intelligence in the field of intellectual property in national jurisdictions (for example, automation of patent application processes, of document evaluation, of sending documents to the applicant) are analyzed, also the results of the implementation and application of the process of accelerated examination of “green” patents in a number of countries, including the Russian Federation. During the study, general scientific methods were used: analysis, synthesis, logical method, generalization, as well as a special legal method and a comparative legal method. The author came to the conclusion that the introduction of artificial intelligence and digital platforms into the activities of organizations in the field of intellectual property significantly speeds up and simplifies the entire process from filing a patent application to issuing a patent; it is necessary to create a unified database of “green” patents and carry out comprehensive work to popularize activities in the field of environmental inventions, since currently the search for “green” patents issued in Russia is difficult, and in general, environmental inventions in Russia account for only 1% of the total number of inventions; it is necessary to develop interstate cooperation in the field of intellectual property and develop joint projects, since the problems that need to be solved in the process of achieving Sustainable Development Goals are global in nature.

The African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation has adopted, on August 2010, one new protocol. This regional text is on the protection of folklore and TK (Traditional Knowledge). Concerning the expressions of foklore, several issues are included such as the ownership of transnational folklore or the distribution of “royalties”. The text is fundamentally inspired by rules relating to copyright law and consolidated by customary law rules.

A thorough analysis of collective management organisations (CMOs) in the unique sociocultural and economic context of Mauritius is presented in this article. By employing a comprehensive methodology that encompasses various case studies and qualitative research techniques like interviews and organisational document analysis, it provides significant understanding of the roles, challenges, and impacts of CMOs in directing and balancing creativity in the Mauritius setting. This study sheds light on the complexities and opportunities present in collective management within Mauritius’ dynamic creative sectors through an examination of operational processes, legislative frameworks, and the socio-economic contributions of CMOs. Minimal election attendance, numerous complaints and conflicts, poor enforcement of intellectual property rights, operational inefficiencies, minimal stakeholder involvement, and poor market dynamics are some of the particular challenges that CMOs in Mauritius confront. The modernisation of the legislative framework, the use of technological advancements, capacity building, income stream diversification, public awareness and advocacy campaigns, and the potential for African and regional unity are some of the special opportunities that CMOs have in Mauritius. This paper offers crucial insights for decision-makers, interested parties, and scholars who want to improve the sustainability and efficacy of collective management techniques, with the ultimate goal of promoting an atmosphere that encourages innovation, creativity, and the fair sharing of intellectual property rights in Mauritius.

The purpose of this study is to study African, Asian and Oceanic countries in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ranking of innovation indicators by means of Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) analysis, as a support to the methodology applied by WIPO. The quantitative methodology used is the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). This paper includes a Pearson’s correlation between the indicators. Results suggest a novelty to WIPO’s methodology using TOPSIS as a support for ranking countries, contributing to improve the methodology of innovation indicators by joining their qualitative and quantitative perspectives and principles.

Technology plays an essential role as climate change becomes a growing concern worldwide. This article aims to examine the influence that innovation exerts on climate change mitigation technology (CCMT) in the African and Asian mining sectors. Data were collected from the World Intellectual Property Organization mining database. We conducted a decomposition analysis of patent families between 2011 and 2020 based on the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method. Findings revealed that African countries do not devote their innovation efforts to adaptive technologies, resulting in a mismatch between mining and access to technologies as the scope of R&D narrows. In Asia, the drive for innovation and technological efficiency is a tool to prevent economic damage and legitimize technological benefits as solutions for climate change mitigation technology. This outcome calls on political, national, and international governments to bridge the innovation gap to trigger a real shift from innovation to these technologies.

Music librarians must have knowledge of the copyright laws which govern the transferring of music from the old analogue form to the new digital formats. These laws were a particular concern of the South African Music Archive Project (SAMAP) which aimed to create an online resource for indigenous South African music particularly that of musicians suppressed during the apartheid years. Polak’s (2009) study was an offshoot of SAMAP. This article draws on her study and identifies the specific problems encountered by music librarians with regard to digital copyright law pertaining to music. The guiding theoretical framework is based on the Berne Convention (2014) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty (1996) which provide the overarching international framework for guiding copyright. The literature review focuses on the international and national legislation; copyright in original recordings; duration of copyright; fair use, the public domain and information commons; copyright and fair dealing; and the South African Copyright Act (No. 98 of 1978). A survey conducted by e-mail identified problem areas experienced by the music librarians regarding the digital music copyright laws in South Africa. Two sets of guidelines for South African music librarians were formulated using their responses and the literature reviewed, and recommendations are made.

Recent years the phenomenon of global value chains (GVCs) has attracted great attention of international organizations. Many of them are involved in the study of GVCs, primarily the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the UN Commission on Trade and Development, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the World Intellectual Property Organization and others, including regional international organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Asia, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, African Development Bank, etc. The purpose of this article is to identify how the role and position of international organizations in the global market for GVC research has changed, both in terms of specific content and in terms of interaction with individual scientists and other international and national institutions. GVC research by international organizations makes an important contribution to the understanding the contradictory features of international fragmentation, the participation of countries, regions, industries and individual firms in it. The publications of international organizations have a common research paradigm: they all recognize the importance of GVCs for national economic development. A similar conceptual framework for the study of GVCs is combined with the research specialization of international organizations, which reflects the main focus of the activity of one or another organization. The availability of research specialization is accompanied by continuity and coordination of research; the conclusions of international organizations do not contradict, but rather complement each other. The most important feature of all publications of international organizations is also their practical orientation, the focus on elaborating recommendations for national policies aimed at maximizing the benefits of participation in GVCs and minimizing the risks of such integration. A key feature of the research of international organizations is their generalizing nature, which allows highlighting the key trends in the development of GVCs and perspective areas for future research. Conducting large-scale research and the development of expert estimates in the field of GVCs became possible due to the availability of significant financial, intellectual and statistical resources of international organizations, including databases (TiVA, EORA, AMNE). The availability of such resources allows not only to conduct generalizing and comparative studies on a large array of macro and micro data, but also to carry out “pioneering” studies, which are a real increment of scientific knowledge in the field of GVC. Obtaining important generalizing or “pioneering” conclusions became possible due to the development of multilateral research cooperation of international organizations with individual researchers, universities, other international institutes and “think tanks”.

Background: Many human diseases are associated with dysregulation of HDACs. HDAC6 exhibits deacetylase activity not only to histone protein but also to non-histone proteins such as α- tubulin, HSP90, cortactin, and peroxiredoxin. These unique functions of HDAC6 have gained significant attention in the medicinal chemistry community in recent years. Thus a great deal of effort has devoted to developing selective HDAC6 inhibitors for therapy with the hope to minimize the side effects caused by pan-HDAC inhibition. Objective: The review intends to analyze the structural feature of the scaffolds, to provide useful information for those who are interested in this field, as well as to spark the future design of the new inhibitors. Methods: The primary tool used for patent searching is SciFinder. All patents are retrieved from the following websites: the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO®), the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO®), Espacenet®, and Google Patents. The years of patents covered in this review are between 2016 and 2019. Results: Thirty-six patents from seventeen companies/academic institutes were classified into three categories based on the structure of ZBG: hydroxamic acid, 1,3,4-oxadiazole, and 1,2,4-oxadiazole. ZBG connects to the cap group through a linker. The cap group can tolerate different functional groups, including amide, urea, sulfonamide, sulfamide, etc. The cap group appears to modulate the selectivity of HDAC6 over other HDAC subtypes. Conclusion: Selectively targeting HDAC6 over other subtypes represents two fold advantages: it maximizes the pharmacological effects and minimizes the side effects seen in pan-HDAC inhibitors. Many small molecule selective HDAC6 inhibitors have advanced to clinical studies in recent years. We anticipate the approval of selective HDAC6 inhibitors as therapeutic agents in the near future.

The adoption of the Arusha Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (Arusha Protocol) in 2015 created a harmonized regional legal mechanism for the protection of plant breeders’ rights (PBRs) in the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) member states. Regrettably, the Arusha Protocol, which is to enter into force after the requisite ratifications, reaffirms the often criticized International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants of 1991 (UPOV 1991) in its extensive limitation of the traditional farmers’ rights to freely save, replant and exchange seeds of protected plant varieties, while liberally conceptualizing PBRs. The stated farmers’ rights are essential for the food security of the developing ARIPO member states, as their agriculture is predominantly characterized by impoverished small-scale farmers who rely on informal seed exchanges. On that basis, this article is premised on the view that the legal regime for plant varieties protection established under the Arusha Protocol is inappropriate for ARIPO members as it fails to balance breeders’ and farmers’ rights in a manner that promotes food security. It proceeds to evaluate the appropriate approach that can suitably balance breeders’ and farmers’ rights for the purposes of promoting food security in Africa.

A well-functioning insurance market benefits the economy by promoting efficient capital allocation, liquidity, savings, and risk reduction. However, in most Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, risk protection uptake is sketchy compared to other regions. For instance, data shows that insurance penetration in Africa stood at 2.78% in 2019, lower than the global average of 7.23%. Hence, this study aims to determine the moderating effect of innovation on institutional components and life insurance penetration in 35 SSA nations between 2009 and 2020. The study employs data from the Financial Development and Structure Database (FDSD), Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for life insurance penetration, the institutional components, and the global innovation index. The study uses the panel corrected standard errors (PCSEs) estimation technique. The study establishes that innovation promotes life insurance penetration by enhancing voice and accountability, the rule of law, and government efficacy mechanisms. The study concludes that innovation is an essential catalyst for performance efficiency through which weak institutional factors can be improved to stimulate insurance uptake. This study adds to the scant body of knowledge on insurance advancement in Africa by examining the previously underexplored function of innovation via the pathway of institutional components. The findings may assist policymakers, managers, and other stakeholders in coordinating innovation plans with institutional mechanisms to boost insurance coverage in the SSA region.

Protecting traditional knowledge (TK) has been acknowledged in various discussions under the umbrella of a number of inter-governmental organizations that deal with biodiversity, the environment, indigenous peoples’ rights, human rights, among others. It has, however, been difficult to arrive at a consensus on the proper modality that can serve the needs and desires of Indigenous and Local Communities (ILCs) in their economic and cultural participation. The paper examines the requirements for the protection of TK and explores the modalities of TK protection at the international level for regulating the control of, access to and utilization of biodiversity associated with it. It is argued that any modality of TK protection should incorporate defensive and positive protection that address gaps in protecting TK. Protection of TK should, therefore, involve identifying different modalities, including those based on Intellectual Property, to fit the nature and use of TK in particular contexts. The paper makes a case for a shift in strategy for protecting TK by adopting pluralistic modalities that address the protection needs of ILCs, depending on the purpose and the context in which the knowledge is practiced.

Africa has been facing significant challenges in its development process, including limited access to research and innovation. However, research, innovation, and technology transfer can play a crucial role in transforming African economies and addressing key developmental challenges. Therefore, legal frameworks that encourage and facilitate these activities are essential. This paper examines the legal frameworks in Africa for encouraging research, innovation, and technology transfer. It analyses the challenges and opportunities that these legal frameworks present and provides recommendations for how they can be improved. One of the key challenges in Africa is the lack of a comprehensive legal framework for intellectual property protection. This has resulted in a situation where innovative ideas and technology are not adequately protected, leading to limited incentives for research and innovation. Furthermore, there is a lack of clarity on how intellectual property rights can be transferred from one country to another, which has created barriers to technology transfer. Another challenge is the lack of a supportive regulatory environment. The absence of clear and consistent regulations for research and innovation has created uncertainty for investors and entrepreneurs. Additionally, the lack of a regulatory framework to govern technology transfer has resulted in the slow uptake of new technologies in many African countries. The paper suggests that the legal frameworks for research, innovation, and technology transfer need to be improved to address these challenges. This includes the development of comprehensive intellectual property protection laws, the establishment of regulatory frameworks for research and innovation, and the creation of mechanisms for technology transfer. The paper concludes by stating that, legal frameworks play an essential role in encouraging research, innovation, and technology transfer in Africa. Addressing the challenges facing the existing legal frameworks will require a coordinated effort between governments, the private sector, and international organizations. By developing more supportive legal frameworks, African countries can unlock the potential of research, innovation, and technology transfer to drive economic development and address key developmental challenges.

The African continent is home to 15% of the world’s population and suffers from a disease burden of more than 25% globally. In this COVID-19 era, the high burden and mortality are further worsened due to inequities, inequalities such as inadequate health systems, scarce financial and human resources, as well as unavailability of inexpensive medicines of good quality, safety, and efficacy. The Universal Health Coverage ensures that people have access to high-quality essential health services, secure, reliable, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines, as well as financial security. This paper aimed at addressing the critical need for a continental African Medicines Agency (AMA) in addressing the inequities and the role of global health diplomacy in building consensus to support the ratification of the Treaty of AMA. A literature review was done in Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE/PubMed, and Google Scholar search engine to identify the critical literature in the context of study objectives. All the articles published after 2015 till 2021 in the context of AMA were included. African Health Strategy 2016–2030 highlighted the importance of an African regulatory mechanism for medicines and medical products. Through global health diplomacy (GHD), the African Union and its partners can negotiate and cooperate in providing infrastructural, administrative, and regulatory support for establishing the AMA. The paper emphasizes the South–South cooperation and highlights the contributions of India and China in the supply of medicines and vaccines to Africa. A strong AMA created through GHD can be a vital instrument in utilizing Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) flexibilities extension and an ideal partner for European and other regional regulatory authorities seeking to stem the tide of counterfeit, sub-standard, or fake products.

Yes, the Yoruba Studies Review has asked me to write a “comprehensive review of the three books released on Chief Isaac Delanọ.” However, because Toyin Falọla had already committed 739 pages for an unsurpassed chronicle and review of the times, life, works, and classics of Doctor Isaac Oluwọle Delanọ, it would be pretentious of me to claim any attempt to do a comprehensive review of the three books. What I will do is to make a modest introduction Book Review 296 Bola Dauda of Delanọ’s long buried or an unheralded intellectual legacy. While Samuel Ajayi Crowther laid the foundation for the transition of Yoruba culture from oral to written literatures, Delanọ provided the guideline manuals, the methodological rubrics, and the compass and roadmaps for the studies and development of modern Yoruba orthography, linguistics, anthropological historiography, literatures, spirituality, and nation building. He was the first Administrative Secretary of the Ẹgbẹ Ọmọ Oduduwa, a cultural organization that became a political party in Nigeria at the dawn of Nigeria’s independence in the 1950s.

This research aims to identify which factors best explain business dynamics and innovation capacity in the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America. To achieve this, data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the Global Competitiveness Report is used. The linear regression method is utilized with the stepwise procedure for data analysis. It is possible to ascertain that, with a view to increasing innovation capacity in the African continent, business leaders and managers should be acquainted with innovation studies to better understand technological advances. In relation to Asia, the detected models of business dynamism and capacity for innovation are positive. On the European continent, the results show that RIS3 has a positive impact on the capacity for innovation. In Latin America and the Caribbean, it seems that business dynamism and the capacity for innovation are negative and regional development policies should be more flexible. In North America, it appears that business dynamism and the capacity for innovation are negative. The research contributes with measures that can be applied by organizations and policymakers to these five continents to improve the performance of business dynamism and the capacity for innovation in their territories. The resulting data give originality to the research as well as important contributions, not only to the theory, but also to the entities (organizations and governments) acting in the field who can implement new policies, such as tax incentives to companies for the first purchase of high-tech equipment, products, or products with intellectual property rights developed by national companies and provide support policies directed to companies that purchase high-tech domestic equipment.

The programme for a revitalization of Africa through the New Partnership for Africa?s Development (NEPAD) project is determined by the need of the African continent to overcome its historic heritage and a rather unfavourable current situation, and to become part of the globalisation processes that had spread throughout the world in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. After a brief clarification of the terminology included in the very title of the above project, the author identifies and analyses the important characteristics of the current situation in the continent, which has been and still is conditioned by the marginalisation and isolation of the continent from the main streams and processes that had been expanding throughout the world over the past decades. Assessing that the underdevelopment and poverty are the essence of the problem, the subliming factor of all other negative trends and the main cause of the continent?s marginalisation in the world?s economic, political and civilizational developments, the main point of the analysis is actually focused on finding the causes of this situation. In that context, the legitimacy of colonialism, the consequences of the globalisation process in the African continent, the link between domestic and external factors in the cause-and-effect connection with the negative development of the continent are being analysed. The analysis of the important factors of the present and the future of the continent includes and identifies the historic and current advantages of the continent, which are also the realistic foundation on which the revitalization project rests on, such as natural and human resources and the richness of Africa?s culture, which has largely contributed to the diversity of the global cultures. In the section on the contents and objectives of the programme for a revitalization of Africa, the author points out several essential characteristics, underlining that the programme is a part of the African leaders themselves, that it is the authentic product of their awareness that without their own responsibility for the fate of Africa?s peoples the problems that those countries are faced with will not be overcome. Since the purpose of the programme for a revitalization is to include the continent in the globalisation processes its implementation depends directly on the support and assistance of the international community and the international agencies and organizations particularly of the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Namely, the global partnership for Africa?s development is directly correlated with the preservation of the global stability. A continuation of Africa?s marginalisation in the globalisation process would be a serious threat to both the world stability and the globalisation process itself, which would be incomplete without the inclusion of all of the world countries. With an identification and analysis of the main priorities of the Programme and of the mechanisms and responsibilities for its implementation, the author concludes that NEPAD?s implementation will be successful only if it becomes the property and a true concern not only of the leaders but also of all African peoples united in their diversity. The author analyses the historic and current external and internal factors that had caused the present situation in the continent, and identifies the potential natural, human and other resources. The programme for a revitalization also encourages the raising of self-consciousness of the segments of society at large about the realistic potentials of the African peoples, thus gaining also a mobilizing character. The author believes that the drawing up of the Plan of Action and its inclusion in the Programme is a rather positive side of the programme for a revitalization assessing it as a strategic mechanism for obtaining sustainable development in the 21st century. The Plan of Action identifies establishment of peace and stability, democratisation of the systems in African countries and formation of uncorrupted and competent governments, that would work in the interest of the people and not in the interest of certain groupings or individuals, as important conditions for the implementation of the strategy. The author also points out the basic sector priorities that the Plan of Action stipulates: overcoming infrastructural differences between certain sectors, investing in information and communication technologies development of electric power supply industries, transport and water supply. The development of human resources implies a poverty reduction, advancement of education system, upgrading of intellectual elite, development of health systems, agriculture, culture, science and technology. In the section on "Controversies, challenges and problems in the process of programme realization," the author tries to consider the Programme? vision, contents and objectives within the milieu of Africa?s present reality and the main development tendencies in the international scene, which would to a large degree determine the frameworks, scope and results of the Programme?s attainment in practice. In view of the diversity of cultures and traditions beliefs and religions, different historic heritage, and with this different external influences, disproportionate degree of economic and overall social development, conflicts within and among certain states, the tradition of unconstitutional rulers and rules, corruption and a series of other factor the author concludes that the project, basically substantial and progressive, will be faced with a number of challenges, dilemmas and difficulties, which would make its implementation uncertain, inconsistent and time-consuming.

Abstract This article summarizes the current status of protection against unfair competition in 19 Member States of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) as well as South Africa. Since several study countries are Member States to at least one Regional Economic Community (RECs) or customs union, which have introduced regional or sub-regional competition regimes to advance regional integration in this area, the relevant RECs and customs unions are also briefly analysed. This is followed by some reflections on the impact of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the AfCFTA’s recently adopted Phase II protocols on Intellectual Property Rights and Competition Policy. The article then examines the different approaches adopted in the study countries to fulfil the obligation to ensure effective protection against unfair competition, as stipulated in Article 10bis(1) of the Paris Convention (PC), and investigates how the concept of ‘honest practices in industrial or commercial matters’ (Article 10bis(2) PC) is interpreted and applied. The article also explores how study countries have implemented the examples of prohibited acts of unfair competition contained in Article 10bis(3) PC, and addresses the question whether additional acts fall within the scope of protection against unfair competition in the study countries. The findings here are presented in such a way that observations from several countries are typically clustered together to exemplify general approaches and categories. The article observes that while countries in the region typically provide some form of legal protection to safeguard fair play in the business sector, study countries represent a variety of legal systems (civil law, common law, a combination of civil law and common law and/or religious law). This influences the way of how they address unfair competition.

Abstract Background It is now 25 years since the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the same concerns raised during its negotiations such as high prices of medicines, market exclusivity and delayed market entry for generics remain relevant as highlighted recently by the Ebola and COVID-19 pandemics. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) mandate to work on the interface between intellectual property, innovation and access to medicine has been continually reinforced and extended to include providing support to countries on the implementation of TRIPS flexibilities in collaboration with stakeholders. This study analyses the role of intellectual property on access to medicines in the African Region. Methods We analyze patent data from the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI) to provide a situational analysis of patenting activity and trends. We also review legislation to assess how TRIPS flexibilities are implemented in countries. Results Patenting was low for African countries. Only South Africa and Cameroon appeared in the list of top ten originator countries for ARIPO and OAPI respectively. Main diseases covered by African patents were HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and tumors. Majority countries have legislation allowing for compulsory licensing and parallel importation of medicines, while the least legislated flexibilities were explicit exemption of pharmaceutical products from patentable subject matter, new or second use of patented pharmaceutical products, imposition of limits to patent term extension and test data protection. Thirty-nine countries have applied TRIPS flexibilities, with the most common being compulsory licensing and least developed country transition provisions. Conclusions Opportunities exist for WHO to work with ARIPO and OAPI to support countries in reviewing their legislation to be more responsive to public health needs.

We debate whether intellectual property (IP) protection of medical products and devices required to prevent, treat and contain COVID-19 should be waived, as proposed by South Africa and India, under the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Agreement on Trade-related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). We discuss existing public policy mechanisms under the TRIPS Agreement and how these have been implemented at national level in Africa, and find that these have proven inadequate and that they have been sub-optimally implemented. We then consider the TRIPS Waiver proposal which has been tabled due to the inadequacy of existing mechanisms and outline the EU’s counter proposal which is founded on existing mechanisms. Both proposals have served at multiple WTO council meetings and would have been the subject of the 2021 WTO Ministerial Conference, which was postponed and is now set to be held in June 2022. Meanwhile, the proposal has been the subject of negotiations between India, South Africa, the EU and the USA (‘the quad’) and, as of May 2022, has been opened for consideration by all Members. Whatever the outcome of WTO deliberations, African states must take necessary national IP regulatory reforms and cooperate at sub-regional and continental level to improve access to medical products and devices to meet their citizenry’s healthcare needs.

We report the results of an effort to measure the contribution of copyright-based industries to the South African economy. Following the methodology of the World Intellectual Property Organization, we identify the copyright industry’s contribution to GDP, employment, imports and exports in South Africa for the period 1970–2009. It was estimated that the sector contributed 4.1% to GDP – more than the contributions of other sectors such as agriculture and food, beverages and tobacco. Because of this quantified importance of the copyright-based industries, we recommend that relevant South African policy authorities and policymakers should monitor and publicise regularly the performance of the copyright-based industries as well as promote programmes for their development and growth.

Despite the adoption of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Declaration on the Agreement on Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Public Health in 2001, which unequivocally affirmed WTO members’ rights to use compulsory licences and other TRIPS flexibilities to access essential medicines, thirteen years on, developing countries and least developed countries are still grappling with access to medicines issues and a high disease burden. Despite some well-researched and eloquent arguments to the contrary, it is a trite fact that patents remain an impediment to access to medicines by encouraging monopolistic prices. In the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a number of possible solutions to the access to medicines problem, such as local manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, using compulsory licences, using parallel importation and investing in research and innovation, have been raised. This paper looks at the possibility of solving the SADC access-to-medicines problem through rewarding innovation and investment into diseases of the poor, by applying the rewards theory of patents. After an initial exposition of theories of intellectual property in general, the paper specifically looks at the rewards theory and contextualizes it to the SADC situation, and comes to the conclusion that the theory may point to one of the viable solutions to the access-to-medicines problem in the region.

Abstract The grim realities of the COVID-19 pandemic have resuscitated discussions about the effectiveness of the flexibilities entrenched in the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for improving access to medicines. This article revisits this vexed issue by examining whether a regional approach to implementing TRIPS obligations could deliver a better outcome for access, especially in low- and middle-income countries, where manufacturing capacity is almost non-existent. Using the East African Community (EAC) as a case study, the article critiques recommended implementation options under the EAC policy on TRIPS flexibilities, concluding that, if significantly implemented, these recommendations could yield a better outcome for access.

Even in the digital age, access to literature and other information for people with print impairments remains extremely poor, especially in the developing world. Reading access holds cascading implications for education, economic empowerment, social participation and self-worth. In June 2013 member states of WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization)concluded a landmark treaty to reduce copyright impediments to the dissemination of literature to print impaired people. Its effectiveness is not yet clear. Meanwhile, critics hold that disability studies’ analyses have too often lacked insight into the personal and psychological ramifications of exclusion. This article provides an account of the ‘book famine’ from the perspective of a print impaired South African disability researcher, arguing that thorough investigation of the impressions of exclusion is necessary for change. The account highlights the personal, even malignant psychological reverberations of deprivations such as the ‘bookfamine’, which may carry traumatic effects which cement the status quo.

AbstractWhen the COVID-19 pandemic first took the world by storm, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a Solidarity Call to Action to realize equitable global access to COVID-19 health technologies through pooling of knowledge, intellectual property and data. At the dawn of 2022, 70% of rich countries’ populations were vaccinated but only 4.6% of poor countries (Our World In Data, Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations, 2022). Vaccine nationalism and rampant self-interest grew and our ineffective global response led to new variants of concern - like Omicron - emerging. Rather than abandon the idea of solidarity in global health, we believe that the international community must embrace it. Solidarity, with its emphasis on relationality and recognition of similarities, could offer fertile ground for building an ethical framework for an interconnected and interdependent world. Such a framework would be better than a framework that focuses principally on individual entitlements. To defend this view, we draw on African relational views of personhood and morality. When humans are conceived of as essentially relational beings, solidarity occupies a central role in moral behaviour. We argue that part of the reason appeals to solidarity have failed may be traced to an inadequate conceptualization of solidarity. For as long as solidarity remains a beautiful notion, practiced voluntarily by generous and kindhearted persons, in a transient manner to respond to specific challenges, it will never be able to offer an adequate framework for addressing inequities in global health in a systematic and permanent way. Drawing on this understanding of solidarity, we propose pathways to respond creatively to the risks we face to ensure equitable access to essential health for all.

The concept of broadcast copyright is one of the most controversial and non-felicitous subjects, both at national and transnational levels. Most municipal copyright laws and relevant international instruments merely provide that broadcasting organizations shall enjoy protection over their broadcasts and programme-carrying signals. Some of those international instruments include The Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations of 1961 (hereinafter “the Rome Convention”). Article 13 thereof grants specific exclusive rights against certain activities in relation to the broadcasts of broadcasting organizations. Additionally, Article 1 of the Rome Convention guarantees that its exercise and implementation shall leave intact and in no way affect the protection of copyright in literary and artistic works. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (hereinafter “the TRIPs Agreement”) of 1994 follows the model of the Rome Convention, and under Article 14 (3) grants broadcasting organizations the same neighbouring rights as the latter does. In both instruments, the object of protection in a broadcast or broadcasts was never defined. The Convention Relating to the Distribution of Programme-Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite (hereinafter “the Satellite Convention”) of 1974 does not grant broadcasting organizations any specific right but obliges Contracting Parties to prevent unauthorized distribution on or from their territories of any programme-carrying signal by any distributor for whom the signal emitted to or passing through the satellite is not intended. The protection conferred upon the broadcasting organizations under the above international instruments are replicated in the copyright laws of Kenya and South Africa without clarifying upon the property and the scope of protection of a broadcast. The failure to specifically define the subject matter of protection in broadcast copyright as well as its outer boundaries forms the genesis of the current controversy. Amid this controversy, this article examines two emerging global approaches around which broadcast copyright revolves, namely the content or rights-based approach, and the signal-based approach. Drawing from the two approaches, the article examines the extent to which they apply to Kenya and South Africa.

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash ABSTRACT Current conceptions of solidarity impose a morality and sacrifice that did not prevail in the case of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Notably, the vaccine distribution disparity revealed that when push came to shove, in the case of global distribution, self-interested persons reached inward rather than reaching out, prioritized their needs, and acted to realize their self-interest. Self-interest and loyalty to one’s own group are natural moral tendencies. For solidarity to be normatively relevant in difficult and emergency circumstances, solidarity scholars ought to leverage the knowledge of the human natural tendency to prioritize one’s own group. This paper recommends a nonexclusive approach to solidarity that reflects an understanding of rational self-interest but highlights commonalities among all people. A recommended task for future studies is to articulate what the account of solidarity informed by loyalty to the group would look like. INTRODUCTION The distribution of COVID-19 vaccines raises concerns about the normative relevance of the current conceptions of solidarity. Current conceptions of solidarity require individuals to make sacrifices they will reject in difficult and extreme situations. To make it more relevant in difficult situations, there is a need to rethink solidarity in ways that align with natural human dispositions. The natural human disposition or tendency is to have loyalty to those to whom one relates, to those in one’s own group (by race, ethnicity, neighborhood, socioeconomic status, etc.), or to those in one’s location or country. While some may contend that such natural dispositions should be overcome through moral enhancement,[1] knowledge about self-interest ought to be leveraged to reconceptualize solidarity. Notably, for solidarity to be more relevant in emergencies characterized by shortages, solidarity ought to take natural human behaviors seriously. This paper argues that rather than seeing solidarity as a collective agreement to help others out of a common interest or purpose, solidarity literature must capitalize on human nature’s tendency toward loyalty to the group. One way to do this is by expanding the group to the global community and redefining solidarity to include helping the human race when emergencies or disasters are global. The first section describes the current conception of solidarity, altruism, and rational self-interest. The second section discusses how the moral imperative to cooperate by reaching out to others did not lead to equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The third section argues that solidarity should be rethought to align with natural human dispositions toward loyalty to groups and rational self-interest. The final section briefly suggests the global community be the group for nonexclusive solidarity. I. Solidarity: Understanding Its Normative Imperatives Solidarity literature is vast and complex, attracting contributions from authors from countries of all income levels.[2] Notably, the literature addresses how solidarity develops from interpersonal, then group to institutional, and how it is motivated and maintained at different levels.[3] Solidarity is unity among people with a shared interest or goal.[4] The term was popularized during an anti-communist labor movement in Poland.[5] While a show of solidarity traditionally meant solidarity within a group, for example, workers agreeing with and supporting union objectives and leaders,[6] it has come to include sympathy/empathy and action by those outside the group who stand with those in need. In bioethics, the Nuffield Council defines solidarity as “shared practices reflecting a collective commitment to carry financial, social, emotional, and or other ‘costs’ to assist others.”[7] As conceptualized currently, solidarity prescribes a morality of cooperation and may incorporate altruism. Solidaristic actions like aiding others or acting to enhance the quality of others’ lives are often motivated by emotive connections/relations. For this reason, Barbara Prainsack and Alena Buyx define solidarity as “a practice by which people accept some form of financial, practical, or emotional cost to support others to whom they consider themselves connected in some relevant respect.”[8] Although this description has been critiqued, the critics[9] do not deny that sympathy and understanding are the bases for “standing up beside” or relating to others. Political solidarity is a “response to injustice, oppression, or social vulnerability”[10] and it entails a commitment to the betterment of the group. “Rational self-interest” describes when parties behave in ways that make both parties better off.[11] They may be partly motivated by their own economic outcome. It may be that when some regions or groups act solidaristically, they are also motivated by shared economic goals.[12] Rational self-interest is not always opposed to the commitment to collectively work for the group’s good. Rational self-interest can intersect with collective action when parties behave in ways that make both parties better off. For example, one study found that individuals are willing to bear the burden of higher taxes in favor of good education policies that significantly increase their opportunities to have a good life.[13] Rationally self-interested persons may be partly motivated by their own economic outcome. It may be that when some regions or groups act solidaristically, they are also motivated by shared economic goals.[14] Specifically, individuals, organizations, and governments are driven to positively identify with or aid others because they feel connected to them, share the same interest, or would benefit from the same action. Cooperating with others on this basis guarantees their interests. Individuals will be less likely to help those with whom they do not feel connected. Respect, loyalty, and trust among solidary partners are equally grounded in this belief. “[S]olidarity involves commitment, and work as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feeling, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common grounds.”[15] Although individuals are more likely to exhibit solidarity with those to whom they feel connected, their lives and interests are still different. Some African philosophers describe solidarity as entailing reciprocal relations and collective responsibility.[16] The bases for positively acting to benefit others are communal relations and individual flourishing, similar to solidarity as it is described in the global literature. Common motifs and maxims typify this belief: the West African motifs like the Siamese Crocodile and the African maxims like “the right arm washes the left hand and the left arm washes the right arm”, and the Shona phrases “Kukura Kurerwa” and “Chirere chichazo kurerawo” ­– both meaning the group’s development is vital for the individual’s development.[17] As a reciprocal relation, solidaristic actions are instrumentalized for one’s self-affirmation or self-emergence. This view underlies practices in Africa like letsema, which is an agricultural practice where individuals assist each other in harvesting their farm produce. It is also the animating force underlying a favorable disposition towards joint ventures like the ajo (an African contributing saving scheme whereby savings are shared among contributors by rotation).[18] Furthermore, as entailing collective ownership, solidaristic actions become ways of affirming each other’s destiny because it is in one’s best interest to cooperate with them this way or help others realize their life goals given the interconnectedness of lives. One advantage of forming solidary union that reaches out to others is that they possess qualities and skills that one lacks. This application of solidarity is more localized than solidarity among countries or global institutions. Furthermore, solidarity also entails altruism, an idea that is particularly common in the philosophical literature of low-income countries. On this account, solidarity implies a voluntary decision to behave in ways that make individuals better off for their own sake. Here, it matters only that some have thought about solidarity this way. Moreover, this belief informs pro-social behaviors – altruism is acting solely for the good of others.[19] Altruistic behaviors are motivated by empathy, which is an acknowledgement of individuals who require aid, and sensitivity, which is a thoughtful response to individuals in need of help. Solidarity can seem to be a call to help strangers rather than a genuine feeling of uniting with people for a common cause. Altruism and solidarity appear similar although they are distinct in that solidarity is not merely helping others. It is helping others out of a feeling of unity. In some cultures in Africa, an indifference to the needs of others or a failure to act solely in ways that benefit others or society are often considered an exhibition of ill will.[20] Precisely, the phrases “Kukura Kurerwa” and “Chirere chichazo kurerawo” among the Shona people in Southern Africa morally compel one to play an active role in the growth and improvement of others. “The core of improving others’ well-being,” as explained, “is a matter of meeting their needs, not merely basic ones but also those relevant to higher levels of flourishing, e.g. being creative, athletic, theoretical.”[21] On this basis, self-withdrawal, self-isolation, and unilateralism, would be failures to be solidaristic. II. COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Disparity And The Imperative To Reach Out The strength and benefits of cooperation are well documented. COVID-19 vaccine distribution did not reflect solidarity despite the use of rhetoric suggesting it. COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity exemplifies how solidarity requires individuals to make sacrifices that they will refuse under challenging circumstances. Solidaristic rhetoric was not uncommon during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was expressed through maxims like “Stronger together”, “No one is safe until everyone is safe”, “We are all in this together”, and “Flatten the curve”, as well as cemented through actions like physical distancing, mask-wearing, travel restrictions, and limits on social gatherings. Before the pandemic, solidarity rhetoric informed alliances like the Black Health Alliance that was created to enable Black people in Canada to access health resources. This rhetoric and the global recognition of the vital importance of exhibiting solidarity had little if any impact on preventing vaccine distribution disparity. Notably, the World Health Organization set a goal of global vaccination coverage of 70 percent. The 70 percent figure was recognized as key for ending the pandemic, preventing the emergence of new variants, and facilitating global economic recovery.[22] The solidaristic rhetoric that no country was safe until all countries were safe did not result in enough vaccine distribution. Nor did the rational self-interest of common economic goals. The economic impact of the pandemic has been huge for most nations, costing the global community more than $2 trillion.[23] Vaccine distribution disparity across countries and regions undermined international efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic. The disparity revealed that self-interested persons, organizations, and countries reached inward, prioritized their needs, and acted to realize their own self-interest. Empirical studies confirmed the disparity at the macro and micro levels. Some of the findings are worth highlighting. The number of vaccine doses injected in high-income countries was 69 times higher than that in low-income countries.[24] In fact, the UK had doubly vaccinated about 75 percent of its adult population by February 2022, while more than 80 percent of African nations had not received a single dose of the vaccine.[25] Precisely, the national uptake of vaccines in Uganda (which is a low-income economy without COVID-19 production capacity) was “6 percent by September 2021 and 63 percent by June 2022. The vaccination coverage in the country was 2 percent by September 2021 and 42 percent by June 2022. Yet both the national COVID-19 vaccination uptake and coverage were far below WHO targets for these dates.[26] Although a report which assessed the impact of COVID-19 vaccines in the first of year of vaccination showed that about 19 million COVID-19-related deaths were averted, they were mainly in the high-income countries rather than in countries that failed to reach the vaccine coverage threshold for preventing the emergence of new variants.[27] There were more than 250,000 COVID-related deaths in African countries.[28] Though this figure is significantly lower than reported COVID-19 deaths in North America (1.6 million), the report and other studies confirm that many of the deaths in Africa could have been prevented if the vaccines had been widely distributed in the region. [29] Still at the macro level, whereas 78 percent of individuals in high-income countries were vaccinated by February 15, 2022, only 11 percent of persons in low-income countries were vaccinated by the same date.[30] By February 15, 2022, high-income countries like Lithuania and Gibraltar (a UK territory) had more than 300 percent of doses required for vaccinating their population, while low-income countries in Africa had only managed to secure about 10 percent of the necessary vaccine doses for their people. Burundi had vaccinated less than 1 percent of its population by December 2022. The disparity between countries of similar income levels was also evident. For example, among 75 low- and middle-income countries, only about 14 countries reported vaccinating at least 50 percent of their population. And, while high-income countries like Qatar had secured more than 105 percent of doses for their people, other high-income countries like Liechtenstein had only managed about 67 percent vaccination coverage by December 2022.[31] Within countries, vaccination coverage gaps were also evident between urban and rural areas, with the former having higher vaccination coverage than the latter.[32] There were many tangible solidaristic efforts to cooperate or reach out through schemes like the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) and Technology Access Pool (C-TAP). Notably, the schemes were testaments of the global recognition to lift others as we rise and not leave anyone behind. Both high-income and low- and middle-income countries supported the programs as an expression of solidarity. Indeed, many low- and middle-income countries secured about 800 million doses through these schemes by the end of December 2021. Nonetheless, this was still far below these countries’ two-billion-dose target by the same date. The wealthier countries’ rhetoric of support did not lead to delivery of enough vaccines. The support by high-income countries seems disingenuous. While high-income countries at first allocated vaccines carefully and faced shortages, they had plentiful supplies before many countries had enough for their most vulnerable people. Thus, these schemes did very little to ensure the well-being of people in low- and middle-income countries that relied on them. These schemes had many shortcomings. For example, COVAX relied on donations and philanthropy to meet its delivery targets. In addition, despite their support for these schemes, many high-income countries hardly relied on them for their COVID-19 vaccine procurement. Instead, these high-income countries made their own private arrangements. In fact, high-income countries relied on multilateral agreements and direct purchases to secure about 91 percent of their vaccines.[33] These solidaristic underfunded schemes had to compete to procure vaccines with the more highly resourced countries. Arguably, many factors were responsible for the uneven distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. For example, vaccine production sites facilitated vaccine nationalism whereby countries prioritized their needs and enabled host states like the UK to stockpile vaccines quickly. Regions without production hubs, like many places in Africa, experienced supply insecurity.[34] The J & J-Aspen Pharmacare deal under which a South African facility would produce the J&J COVID vaccine did not improve the local supply.[35] Companies sold vaccines at higher than the cost of production despite pledges by many companies to sell COVID-19 vaccines at production cost. AstraZeneca was the only company reported to have initially sold vaccines at cost until it replaced this with tiered pricing in late 2021.[36] Moderna estimated a $19 billion net profit from COVID-19 vaccine sales by the end of 2021. Pricing practices undermined solidaristic schemes designed to help low-income countries access the doses required for their populations.[37] The unwillingness of Western pharmaceutical companies like Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna to temporarily relinquish intellectual property rights or transfer technology that would have eased vaccine production in low-income countries that lacked production capabilities even when taxpayers’ money or public funding accelerated about 97 percent of vaccine discovery is another example of acting without solidarity. South Africa and India proposed the transfer of essential technological information about COVID-19 vaccines to them to increase local production.[38] The EU, UK, and Germany, which host many of these pharmaceutical companies, opposed the technology transfers.[39] Corporations protected their intellectual property and technology for profits. There were many other factors, like vaccine hoarding. Although the solidaristic rhetoric suggested a global community united to help distribute the vaccine, COVID-19 vaccine distribution demonstrates that individuals, institutions, regions, or states will prioritize their needs and interests. This leads to the question, “What sort of behaviors can reasonably be expected of individuals in difficult situations? In what ways can solidarity be re-imagined to accommodate such behaviors? Ought solidarity be re-imagined to accommodate such actions? III. COVID-19 Vaccine Disparity: Lessons For Solidarity Literature COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity has been described as inequitable and immoral.[40] One justification for the negative depiction is that it is irresponsible of individual states or nations to prioritize their own needs over the global good, especially when realizing the global interest is necessary for ensuring individual good. Although such contributions to the ethical discourse on COVID-19 vaccine disparity are essential, they could also distract attention from vital conversations concerning how and why current solidarity conceptions can better reflect core human dispositions. To clarify, the contestation is not that solidaristic acts of reaching out to others are morally unrealistic or non-realizable. There are historical examples of solidarity, particularly to end a common affliction or marginalization. An example is the LGBT support of HIV/AIDS-infected persons based on their shared identities to confront and end the stigma, apathy, and homophobia that accompanied the early years of the crisis.[41] Equally, during the apartheid years in South Africa, Black students formed solidarity groups as a crucial racial response to racism and oppression by the predominantly White government.[42] Additionally, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director, Tedros Ghebreyesus cited solidarity and its rhetoric as the reason for the resilience of societies that safely and efficiently implemented restrictive policies that limited COVID-19 transmission. To improve its relevance to emergencies, solidarity ought to be reconceptualized considering COVID-19 vaccine distribution. As demonstrated by the COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity, individuals find it difficult to help others in emergencies and share resources given their internal pressing needs. Moreover, humans have a natural tendency to take care of those with whom they identify. That may be by country or region, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, type of employment, or other grouping. By extension, the morality that arises from the tendency towards “the tribe” is sometimes loyalty to one’s broader group. Evidence from human evolutionary history, political science, and psychology yields the claim that “tribal [morality] is a natural and nearly ineradicable feature of human cognition, and that no group—not even one’s own—is immune.”[43] Tribal morality influences mantras like America First, South Africans Above Others, or (arguably) Brexit. These conflict with solidarity. As another global example, climate change concerns are not a priority of carbon’s worst emitters like the US, China, and Russia. In fact, in 2017, the US pulled out of the Paris Agreement, a tangible effort to rectify the climate crisis.[44] Droughts experienced by indigenous people in Turkana, the melting ice experienced by the Inuit, the burning bush experienced by the aboriginal Australians, and the rise in ocean levels that remain a constant threat to the Guna are examples of the harm of the changing climate. In the case of climate action, it appears that governments prioritize their self-interests or the interests of their people, over cooperation with governments of places negatively impacted. In the instance of COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity, loyalty to the group was evident as states and countries kept vaccines for their own residents. Solidarity has a focus on shared interests and purpose, but in its current conceptions it ignores human nature’s loyalty to groups. In emergencies that involve scarcity, solidarity needs to be redefined to address the impulse to keep vaccines for one’s own country’s population and the choice to sell vaccines to the highest bidder. For solidarity to be normatively relevant in difficult and emergency circumstances, solidarity scholars ought to leverage the knowledge of human natural tendency to prioritize one’s own group to rethink this concept. IV. Rethinking Solidarity For Challenging Circumstances In the globalized world, exhibiting solidarity with one another remains intrinsically valuable. It makes the world better off. But the challenge remains ensuring that individuals can exhibit solidarity in ways that align with their natural instincts. Rather than helping those seen as other, or behaving altruistically without solidarity, people, governments, and organizations should engage in solidarity to help others and themselves as part of the global community. A rational self-interest approach to solidarity is similar, while altruism is distinguishable. Solidarity can be expanded to apply when the human race as a whole is threatened and common interests prevail, sometimes called nonexclusive solidarity.[45] That is distinguished from altruism as solidarity involves seeing each other as having shared interests and goals – the success of others would lead to the success of all. For example, cleaner air or limiting the drivers of human-made climate change would benefit all. Warning the public, implementing social distancing and masking, and restricting travel are examples of global goals that required solidaristic actions to benefit the human race.[46] Arguably, this conception of solidarity could apply to a scarce resource, like the COVID-19 vaccine. Notably, the solidarity rhetoric that this gives rise to is that COVID-19 vaccine equitable distribution is a fight for the human race. Solidarity has been applied to scarcity and used to overcome deprivation due to scarcity. In the case AIDS/HIV, there were many arguments and then programs to reduce drug prices and to allocate and condoms to countries where the epidemic was more pronounced and continuing to infect people. Similarly, a solidarity-inspired effort led to treatments for resistant tuberculosis.[47] Summarily, I suggest that we cannot tackle global health problems without exhibiting solidarity with one another. Humans can exhibit solidarity in ways that align with their natural instincts. To do this, nonexclusive solidarity described in this section, is required. Although the nonexclusive solidarity recognizes difference, it avoids the “logic of competition that makes difference toxic.”[48] Without necessarily requiring every country's leaders to prioritize global citizens equally, the nonexclusive solidarity at least, prohibits forms of competition that undermine initiatives like COVAX from securing the required vaccines to reach the vaccine coverage target. CONCLUSION COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity does not create a new problem. Instead, it reveals an existing concern. This is the disconnect between dominant human psychological makeup and the sort of solidarity expounded in current literature or solidaristic actions. Notably, it reveals a failure of current solidarity conceptions to reflect the natural human tendency to prioritize the interests of one’s own group. As such, the disparity requires rethinking or reconceptualization of solidarity in ways that align with the dominant human tendency. As conceptualized currently, solidarity enjoins a form of morality that many found very difficult to adhere to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, they perceived solidarity as a call to help strangers. Humans are linked by something that is far more important than a relationship between strangers. The unbreakable bond among humans that this idea gives rise to would necessitate genuine concern for each other’s well-being since we are implicated in one another's lives. The exact ways a conception of solidarity that applies to the global community can inform guidelines and policies in emergencies and difficult situations when individuals are expected to be solidaristic is a recommended task for future studies. - [1] Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu 2019. The Duty to be Morally Enhanced. Topoi, 38, 7-14. [2] M. Inouye 2023. On Solidarity, Cambridge, MA, Boston Review. [3] Barbara Prainsack & Alena Buyx 2011. Solidarity. Reflections on an Emerging Concept in Bioethics. Summary. [4] Oxford Languages (“unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group.”) [5] Mikolaj Glinski. 2015. The Solidarity Movement: Anti-Communist, Or Most Communist Thing Ever? The Solidarity Movement: Anti-Communist, Or Most Communist Thing Ever?. https://culture.pl/en/article/the-solidarity-movement-anti-communist-or-most-communist-thing-ever. [6] Carola Frege, Edmund Heery & Lowell Turner 2004. 137The New Solidarity? Trade Union Coalition-Building in Five Countries. In: FREGE, C. & KELLY, J. (eds.) Varieties of Unionism: Strategies for Union Revitalization in a Globalizing Economy. Oxford University Press. [7] Barbara Prainsack & Alena Buyx 2011. Solidarity. Reflections on an Emerging Concept in Bioethics. Summary. [8] Prainsack & Buyx, 2017. [9] Angus Dawson & Bruce Jennings 2012. The Place of Solidarity in Public Health Ethics. Public Health Reviews, 34, 4. [10] Sally J. Scholz 2008. Political Solidarity, Penn State University Press. [11] Emanuele Bertusi. 2017. An analysis of Adam Smith's concept of self-interest: From Selfish behavior to social interest. Libera Universita Internazionale Degli Studi Sociali. [12] Sally J. Scholz 2008. Political Solidarity, Penn State University Press. [13] Marius R. Busemeyer & Dominik Lober 2020. Between Solidarity and Self-Interest: The Elderly and Support for Public Education Revisited. Journal of Social Policy, 49, 425-444. [14] Scholz, 2008. [15] Sara Ahmed 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion, New York, Routledge. [16] C. Ewuoso, T. Obengo & C. Atuire 2022. Solidarity, Afro-communitarianism, and COVID-19 vaccination. J Glob Health, 12, 03046. [17] J Mugumbate 2013. Exploring African philosophy: The value of ubuntu in social work. Afri J Soc W 3, 82-100. [18] Salewa Olawoye-Mann 2023. 55Beyond Coping: The Use of Ajo Culture among Nigerian Immigrants to Counter Racial Capitalism in North America. In: HOSSEIN, C. S., AUSTIN, S. D. W. & EDMONDS, K. (eds.) Beyond Racial Capitalism: Co-operatives in the African Diaspora. Oxford University Press. [19] Estrella Gualda 2022. Altruism, Solidarity and Responsibility from a Committed Sociology: Contributions to Society. The American Sociologist, 53, 29-43. [20] Ewuoso, Obengo & Atuire 2022. [21] T. Metz 2015. An African theory of social justice. In: BIOSEN, C. & MURRAY, M. (eds.) Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought: Perspectives on Finding a Fair Share. New York: Routledge. [22] Victoria Pilkington, Sarai Mirjam Keestra & Andrew Hill 2022. Global COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity: Failures in the First Year of Distribution and Potential Solutions for the Future. Frontiers in Public Health, 10. [23] M. Hafner, E. Yerushalmi, C. Fays, E. Dufresne & C. Van Stolk 2022. COVID-19 and the Cost of Vaccine Nationalism. Rand Health Q, 9, 1. [24] Mohsen Bayati, Rayehe Noroozi, Mohadeseh Ghanbari-Jahromi & Faride Sadat Jalali 2022. 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African dashboard for tracking the COVID-19 in real-time. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/b959be51c0014845ad44142bce1b68fe [29] Jai K. Das, Hsien Yao Chee, Sohail Lakhani, Maryam Hameed Khan, Muhammad Islam, Sajid Muhammad & Zulfiqar A. Bhutta 2023. COVID-19 Vaccines: How Efficient and Equitable Was the Initial Vaccination Process? Vaccines, 11, 11. O. J. Watson, G. Barnsley, J. Toor, A. B. Hogan, P. Winskill & A. C. Ghani 2022. Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modelling study. Lancet Infect Dis, 22, 1293-1302. [30] Pilkington, Keestra & Hill 2022. [31] Kunyenje, et al. 2023. [32] Pilkington, Keestra & Hill 2022. [33] Jai K. Das, Hsien Yao Chee, Sohail Lakhani, Maryam Hameed Khan, Muhammad Islam, Sajid Muhammad & Zulfiqar A. Bhutta 2023. COVID-19 Vaccines: How Efficient and Equitable Was the Initial Vaccination Process? Vaccines, 11, 11. [34] Kunyenje, et al. 2023. [35] Lynsey Chutel. 2022. Africa's first COVID-19 vaccine factory hasn't received a single order. Africa's first COVID-19 vaccine factory hasn't received a single order. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/world/africa/south-africa-covid-vaccine-factory.html [36] Graham Dutfield, Siva Thambisetty, Aisling Mcmahon, Luke Mcdonagh & Hyo Kang 2022. Addressing Vaccine Inequity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The TRIPS Intellectual Property Waiver Proposal and Beyond. Cambridge Law Journal, 81. [37] Dutfield, et al. [38] Hannah Balfour. June 17, 2022 2022. WTO waives intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. European Pharmaceutical Review https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/172329/breaking-news-wto-waives-intellectual-property-rights-for-covid-19-vaccines/ [39] Government Uk. 2021. UK statements to the TRIPS Council: Item 15 waiver proposal for COVID-19. UK statements to the TRIPS Council: Item 15 waiver proposal for COVID-19 . https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-statement-to-the-trips-council-item-15 [40] Victoria Pilkington, Sarai Mirjam Keestra & Andrew Hill 2022. Global COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity: Failures in the First Year of Distribution and Potential Solutions for the Future. Frontiers in Public Health, 10. [41] Benjamin Klassen 2021. ‘Facing it Together’: Early Caregiving Responses to Vancouver's HIV/AIDS Epidemic. Gender & History, 33, 774-789. [42] Mabogo P. More 2009. Black solidarity: A philosophical defense. Theoria: J Soc and Pol Theory, 56, 20-43. [43] Cory J. Clark, Brittany S. Liu, Bo M. Winegard & Peter H. Ditto 2019. Tribalism Is Human Nature. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28, 587-592. [44] Hai-Bin Zhang, Han-Cheng Dai, Hua-Xia Lai & Wen-Tao Wang 2017. U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement: Reasons, impacts, and China's response. Advances in Climate Change Research, 8, 220-225. 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Abstract Background In recent years there have been calls to strengthen health sciences research capacity in African countries. This capacity can contribute to improvements in health, social welfare and poverty reduction through domestic application of research findings; it is increasingly seen as critical to pandemic preparedness and response. Developing research infrastructure and performance may reduce national economies’ reliance on primary commodity and agricultural production, as countries strive to develop knowledge-based economies to help drive macroeconomic growth. Yet efforts to date to understand health sciences research capacity are limited to output metrics of journal citations and publications, failing to reflect the complexity of the health sciences research landscape in many settings. Methods We map and assess current capacity for health sciences research across all 54 countries of Africa by collecting a range of available data. This included structural indicators (research institutions and research funding), process indicators (clinical trial infrastructures, intellectual property rights and regulatory capacities) and output indicators (publications and citations). Results While there are some countries which perform well across the range of indicators used, for most countries the results are varied—suggesting high relative performance in some indicators, but lower in others. Missing data for key measures of capacity or performance is also a key concern. Taken as a whole, existing data suggest a nuanced view of the current health sciences research landscape on the African continent. Conclusion Mapping existing data may enable governments and international organizations to identify where gaps in health sciences research capacity lie, particularly in comparison to other countries in the region. It also highlights gaps where more data are needed. These data can help to inform investment priorities and future system needs.

AbstractThe WHO estimates that traditional medicine(s) (TM) are used in every country around the world in some capacity and that in much of the developing world 70–95% of the population relies on these TM for primary care. It is estimated that at least 25% of all modern medicines are derived, either directly or indirectly, from medicinal plants and that in the case of certain classes of pharmaceuticals, this percentage may be as high as 60%. Some sources claim that that nearly a quarter of all pharmaceutical products worldwide are derived from plant sources. There is a global increase in interest in the use of TM and with it the global expenditure on TM. In 2005, for instance, the global market for traditional medicines was estimated at US$ 60 billion, reached US$ 83 billion in 2008 and is expected to reach US$ 114 billion by 2015.Africa prides itself as one of the most important pools for this globally important resource. Experience has, however, shown that both at national and at international levels, the continent has not yet been able to benefit from the international trade of TM. The regulation of TM is yet to become comprehensive at international and national levels. Yet, traditional medicinal knowledge has hitherto attracted only a fragmented regulatory attention by international organizations such as the WTO which focus on the various interests that TM represents. Although the harmonized regulation of the environmental, health, intellectual property, trade, cultural heritage, human rights, development and other interests on TM can be a complicated assignment, this article will attempt to show how the rules of international economic law, in tandem with other relevant international instruments, can bring benefit to the African continent by setting rules for sustainable exploitation of TM.

RESUMEN: Al crecer entre cubanos de generaciones anteriores, muchos de nosotros no pudimos evitar la proverbial frase " más se perdió en la guerra ". Ya sea en respuesta a la caída accidental de la porcelana más preciada en el suelo de la cocina o al desempeño mediocre de un niño en un examen en la escuela, nuestras abuelas y tía-abuelas especialmente parecían encontrar consuelo en la comparación de decepciones relativamente menores con las profundas cicatrices sufridas cuando Cuba había estado en guerra. Sin duda, cuatro siglos de esclavitud, tres luchas independentistas contra España, intervenciones militares de Estados Unidos e innumerables protestas armadas para derrocar o transformar gobiernos no representativos, dejaron recuerdos imborrables de dolor y una sed de justicia política cuyo legado perdura. Después de más de dos años de aislamiento impuesto por la pandemia y de una innumerable serie de crisis que han ido engullendo a la isla de Cuba, compartimos esta pequeña colección de diez documentos inéditos y prácticamente desconocidos procedentes de dos de las colecciones de archivos y manuscritos más importantes de Cuba. Leídas en conjunto, estas voces olvidadas y poco escuchadas abarcan las múltiples formas en que la guerra, el militarismo y la violencia sumergieron las esperanzas e identidades individuales de los cubanos en la búsqueda colectiva de la salvación y en lo que podría llamarse "la tarea generacional de salvar al mundo salvando a la nación". A continuación se presentan ejemplos sorprendentes de cartas que ciudadanos anónimos escribieron al legendario general cubano Máximo Gómez, así como los escritos y la correspondencia personal que recibieron varias grandes patriotas femeninas como "la Cubanita" Ritica Suárez del Villar y Suárez del Villar (1862–1961), María Cabrales Viuda de Maceo (1842–1905) y "La Delegada" Magdalena Peñarredonda (1846–1937), capitana del Ejército Libertador de Cuba a la que José Martí designó para representar al Partido Revolucionario Cubano en la crucial provincia de Pinar del Río, así como operativa estratégica y amiga personal del general Antonio Maceo. En conjunto, estos documentos revelan no solo una politización integral que a algunos les puede resultar sorprendente, sino un sentido explícito de orgullo e igualdad de género ya alcanzado en la camaradería de la crisis, el activismo y la guerra. Aunque predominantemente extraídos del ciclo de luchas y traumas producidos durante la última Guerra de Independencia de Cuba en 1895 y la posterior ocupación militar de los Estados Unidos (1898–1902), también hemos incluido tres impactantes documentos de la colección personal de Ofelia Domínguez Navarro, militante del Partido Comunista y abogada de Cienfuegos conocida por su trabajo en favor de los derechos de la mujer y su elección para la Convención Constitucional de Cuba de 1940. Aunque se hizo famosa por su temprano activismo y persecución en la lucha para derrocar al presidente convertido en dictador de Cuba, Gerardo Machado, el período de tres años de Domínguez Navarro como Ministra de Propaganda de Fulgencio Batista durante la única presidencia elegida de Batista (1940–1944) ha sido borrado casi por completo de la historia. A partir de 1941, cuando Cuba se unió a las potencias aliadas para luchar contra los nazis y los japoneses, ningún soldado sirvió en ningún frente. Sin embargo, Domínguez Navarro no solo supervisó la organización y el entrenamiento de un cuerpo de Defensa Civil, sino que emitió programas de radio semanales en los que detallaba la naturaleza de las políticas genocidas del Tercer Reich y la amenaza radical que representaba el fascismo en este hemisferio. Uno de los aspectos más destacados de esta selección de documentos es un cartel diseñado bajo la supervisión de Domínguez Navarro que atribuye vínculos históricos directos entre la visión antirracista, antiimperialista y democrática de la nación que los cubanos abrazaron durante sus guerras de independencia del siglo XIX y el tipo de apoyo, incondicional a la causa aliada, necesario para derrotar al totalitarismo moderno. Hoy en día, pocos historiadores de Cuba discutirían los pronunciados cambios en las narrativas antes aceptadas que han marcado las últimas décadas en nuestro campo. Sorprendentes descubrimientos de nuevos conocimientos y audaces interpretaciones de archivos ocultos han abierto y, en ocasiones, derribado antiguos tabúes. Tal vez no se hayan producido mayores avances en la historiografía de Cuba que los relacionados con la centralidad, la agencia, el liderazgo, las contribuciones intelectuales, la resistencia y la represión de los cubanos negros, los esclavizados y otros afrodescendientes. Sorprendentemente, la experiencia de las mujeres cubanas, sea cual sea su clase, identidad racial o herencia, sigue siendo menos examinada, subsumida —algunos podrían argumentar— en la a menudo gargantuesca tarea de simplemente obtener acceso en Cuba a cualquier archivo o colección de fuentes primarias de la biblioteca. Esto es especialmente cierto cuando se trata de ciertos períodos de la historia, como de los años 30 a los 50, por no hablar de temas clave, como la historia poscomunista de Cuba de la reforma agraria, las relaciones industriales, el uso punitivo de los campos de trabajo, las confiscaciones de propiedades y similares. Por esta razón, a menudo es tan desafiante como tentador encontrar voces inesperadas del pasado que hablan de forma tan familiar como exótica y desconocida. Esperamos que este dossier de Voces Olvidadas inspire a los lectores a examinar más a fondo la fe incesante en la capacidad de Cuba para corregir los fallos del pasado y el optimismo permanente, incluso implacable, en el futuro que evocan sus palabras. ABSTRACT: Growing up among Cubans of older generations, many of us could not escape the proverbial phrase más se perdió en la Guerra (far more was lost in the war). Whether responding to the accidental crash of cherished porcelain on the kitchen floor or a child's lackluster performance on an exam at school, our abuelas and tía-abuelas especially seemed to find solace in comparing relatively minor disappointments with the profound scars suffered when Cuba had been at war. No doubt four centuries of slavery, three independence struggles against Spain, US military interventions, and countless armed protests intended to topple or transform nonrepresentative governments left indelible memories of pain and a thirst for political justice, the legacies of which live on. In the wake of more than two years of pandemic-imposed isolation and an innumerable array of crises that have steadily come to engulf the island of Cuba, we share this small collection of ten previously unpublished and virtually unknown documents from two of Cuba's most important archival and manuscript collections. Read together, these forgotten, seldom-heard voices encompass the many ways war, militarism, and violence immersed Cubans' individual hopes and identities in the collective search for salvation and what one might call "the generational task of saving the world by saving the nation." Below follow startling examples of letters that anonymous citizens wrote to Cuba's legendary general Máximo Gómez as well as the writings and personal correspondence received by several great female patriots like "la Cubanita," Ritica Suárez del Villar y Suárez del Villar (1862–1961), María Cabrales Viuda de Maceo (1842–1905) and "La Delegada" Magdalena Peñarredonda (1846–1937), captain of the Liberating Army of Cuba whom José Martí appointed to represent the Partido Revolucionario Cubano in the pivotal province of Pinar del Río as well as the strategic operative and personal friend of General Antonio Maceo. Together these documents reveal not only an all-encompassing politicization that some may find surprising but an explicit sense of pride and gender equality already achieved in the camaraderie of crisis, activism, and war. Although predominantly drawn from the cycle of struggle and trauma produced during Cuba's last War for Independence in 1895 and the subsequent US military occupation (1898–1902), we have also included three striking documents from the personal collection of Ofelia Domínguez Navarro, a Communist Party militant and lawyer from Cienfuegos known for her work on behalf of women's rights and her election to Cuba's 1940 Constitutional Convention. Although made famous by her early activism and persecution in the fight to oust Cuba's president-turned-dictator Gerardo Machado, Domínguez Navarro's three-year-stint as Fulgencio Batista's minister of propaganda during Batista's only elected presidency (1940–1944) is almost entirely erased from history. From 1941, when Cuba joined the Allied powers to fight the Nazis and Japanese, no soldiers ever served in any front. However, Domínguez Navarro not only oversaw the organization and training of a Civil Defense corps; she also broadcast weekly radio shows detailing the nature of the Third Reich's genocidal policies and the radical threat that fascism represented in this hemisphere. One of the highlights of this selection of documents is a poster designed under Domínguez Navarro's watch that ascribes direct historical links between the anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and democratic vision of nation Cubans espoused during their nineteenth-century independence wars and the kind of unconditional support for the Allied cause needed to defeat modern-day totalitarianism. Today, few historians of Cuba would dispute the pronounced shifts in once-accepted narratives that have marked the past few decades in our field. Astonishing discoveries of new knowledge and bold interpretations of hidden archives have cracked open and sometimes demolished long-standing taboos. Perhaps no greater strides have been made in the historiography of Cuba than those related to the centrality, agency, leadership, intellectual contributions, resistance, and repression of Black Cubans, the enslaved and others of African descent. Remarkably, female Cubans' experience, whatever their class, racial identity, or heritage, remains less examined, subsumed—some might argue—into the often gargantuan task of simply gaining access in Cuba to any archives or library's primary source collections. This is especially true when it comes to certain periods of history, such as the 1930s to the 1950s, let alone key topics, such as Cuba's postcommunist history of agrarian reform, industrial relations, punitive use of labor camps, property confiscations, and the like. For this reason, it is often as challenging as it is tantalizing to encounter unexpected voices from the past that speak in ways that are familiar while also exotic and unknown. We hope that this dossier of Forgotten Voices inspires readers to examine further the unceasing faith in Cuba's ability to correct the failings of the past and abiding— even relentless—optimism in the future that their words evoke.

This paper explores South African hip-hop activist Emile YX?'s work to suggest that he presents an alternative take on mainstream US and South African hip-hop. While it is arguable that a great deal of mainstream hip-hop is commercially co-opted, it is clear that a significant amount of US hip-hop (by Angel Haze or Talib Kweli, for example) and hip-hop beyond the US (by Positive Black Soul, Godessa, Black Noise or Prophets of da City, for example) present alternatives to its co-option. Emile YX? pushes for an alternative to mainstream hip-hop's aesthetics and politics. Foregoing what Prophets of da City call “mindless topics” (Prophets of da City “Cape Crusader”), he employs hip-hop to engage audiences critically about social and political issues, including language and racial identity politics. Significantly, he embraces AfriKaaps, which is a challenge to the hegemonic speech variety of Afrikaans. From Emile's perspective, AfriKaaps preceded Afrikaans because it was spoken by slaves during the Cape colonial era and was later culturally appropriated by Afrikaner Nationalists in the apartheid era to construct white, Afrikaner identity as pure and bounded. AfriKaaps in hip-hop therefore presents an alternative to mainstream US-centric hip-hop in South Africa (via AKA or Cassper Nyovest, for example) as well as Afrikaner Nationalist representations of Afrikaans and race by promoting multilingual hip-hop aesthetics, which was initially advanced by Prophets of da City in the early '90s.Pursuing Alternative TrajectoriesEmile YX?, a former school teacher, started out with the Black Consciousness-aligned hip-hop crew, Black Noise, as a b-boy in the late 1980s before becoming an MC. Black Noise went through a number of iterations, eventually being led by YX? (aka Emile Jansen) after he persuaded the crew not to pursue a mainstream record deal in favour of plotting a career path as independent artists. The crew’s strategy has been to fund the production and distribution of their albums independently and to combine their work as recording and performing artists with their activism. They therefore arranged community workshops at schools and, initially, their local library in the township, Grassy Park, before touring nationally and internationally. By the late 1990s, Jansen established an NGO, Heal the Hood, in order to facilitate collaborative projects with European and South African partners. These partnerships, not only allowed Black Noise crew members to continue working as hip-hip activists, but also created a network through which they could distribute their music and secure further bookings for performances locally and internationally.Jansen’s solo work continued along this trajectory and he has gone on to work on collaborative projects, such as the hip-hop theatre show Afrikaaps, which looks critically at the history of Afrikaans and identity politics, and Mixed Mense, a b-boy show that celebrates African dance traditions and performed at One Mic Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in 2014 (48 Hours). This artist’s decision not to pursue a mainstream record deal in the early 1990s probably saved Black Noise from being a short-lived pop sensation in favour of pursuing a route that ensured that Cape hip-hop retained its alternative, Black Consciousness-inspired subcultural edge.The activism of Black Noise and Heal the Hood is an example of activists’ efforts to employ hip-hop as a means of engaging youth critically about social and political issues (Haupt, Stealing Empire 158-165). Hence, despite arguments that the seeds for subcultures’ commercial co-option lie in the fact that they speak through commodities (Hebdige 95; Haupt, Stealing Empire 144–45), there is evidence of agency despite the global reach of US cultural imperialism. H. Samy Alim’s concept of translocal style communities is useful in this regard. The concept focuses on the “transportability of mobile matrices – sets of styles, aesthetics, knowledges, and ideologies that travel across localities and cross-cut modalities” (Alim 104-105). Alim makes the case for agency when he contends, “Although global style communities may indeed grow out of particular sociohistoric originating moments, or moments in which cultural agents take on the project of creating ‘an origin’ (in this case, Afrodiasporic youth in the United States in the 1970s), it is important to note that a global style community is far from a threatening, homogenizing force” (Alim 107).Drawing on Arjun Appadurai’s concepts of ethnoscapes, financescapes, ideoscapes and mediascapes, Alim argues that the “persistent dialectical interplay between the local and the global gives rise to the creative linguistic styles that are central to the formation of translocal style communities, and leads into theorizing about glocal stylizations and style as glocal distinctiveness” (Appadurai; Alim 107). His view of globalisation thus accommodates considerations of the extent to which subjects on both the local and global levels are able to exercise agency to produce new or alternative meanings and stylistic practices.Hip-Hop's Translanguaging Challenge to HegemonyJansen’s “Mix en Meng It Op” [“Mix and Blend It / Mix It Up”] offers an example of translocal style by employing translanguaging, code mixing and codeswitching practices. The song’s first verse speaks to the politics of race and language by challenging apartheid-era thinking about purity and mixing:In South Africa is ek coloured and African means black raceFace it, all mense kom van Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionEk’s siek en sat van all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s om te expose onse behoort aan een rasHou vas, ras is las, watch hoe ons die bubble barsPlus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir daai potjie want ons wietie wattie mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSoe hulle moet gemix het om daai clicks to employ(Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; my emphasis)[In South Africa I am coloured and African means black raceFace it, all people come from Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionI’m sick and tired of all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s to expose the fact that we belong top one raceHold on, race is a burden, watch as we burst the bubble Plus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir that pot because we don’t know what the mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSo they must have mixed to employ those clicks]The MC does more than codeswitch or code mix in this verse. The syntax switches from that of English to Afrikaans interchangeably and he is doing more than merely borrowing words and phrases from one language and incorporating it into the other language. In certain instances, he opts to pronounce certain English words and phrases as if they were Afrikaans (for example, “My” and “land’s”). Suresh Canagarajah explains that codeswitching was traditionally “distinguished from code mixing” because it was assumed that codeswitching required “bilingual competence” in order to “switch between [the languages] in fairly contextually appropriate ways with rhetorical and social significance”, while code mixing merely involved “borrowings which are appropriated into one’s language so that using them doesn't require bilingual competence” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, he argues that both of these translingual practices do not require “full or perfect competence” in the languages being mixed and that “these models of hybridity can be socially and rhetorically significant” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, the artist is clearly competent in both English and Afrikaans; in fact, he is also departing from the hegemonic speech varieties of English and Afrikaans in attempts to affirm black modes of speech, which have been negated during apartheid (cf. Haupt “Black Thing”).What the artist seems to be doing is closer to translanguaging, which Canagarajah defines as “the ability of multilingual speakers to shuttle between languages, treating the diverse languages that form their repertoire as an integrated system” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). The mix or blend of English and Afrikaans syntax become integrated, thereby performing the very point that Jansen makes about what he calls “the lie of purity” by asserting that the “mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sir” (Emile XY? “Mix en Meng It Op”). This approach is significant because Canagarajah points out that while research shows that translanguaging is “a naturally occurring phenomenon”, it “occurs surreptitiously behind the backs of the teachers in classes that proscribe language mixing” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). Jansen’s performance of translanguaging and challenge to notions of linguistic and racial purity should be read in relation to South Africa’s history of racial segregation during apartheid. Remixing Race/ism and Notions of PurityLegislated apartheid relied on biologically essentialist understandings of race as bounded and fixed and, hence, the categories black and white were treated as polar opposites with those classified as coloured being seen as racially mixed and, therefore, defiled – marked with the shame of miscegenation (Erasmus 16; Haupt, “Black Thing” 176-178). Apart from the negative political and economic consequences of being classified as either black or coloured by the apartheid state (Salo 363; McDonald 11), the internalisation of processes of racial interpellation was arguably damaging to the psyche of black subjects (in the broad inclusive sense) (cf. Fanon; Du Bois). The work of early hip-hop artists like Black Noise and Prophets of da City (POC) was therefore crucial to pointing to alternative modes of speech and self-conception for young people of colour – regardless of whether they self-identified as black or coloured. In the early 1990s, POC lead the way by embracing black modes of speech that employed codeswitching, code mixing and translanguaging as a precursor to the emergence of music genres, such as kwaito, which mixed urban black speech varieties with elements of house music and hip-hop. POC called their performances of Cape Flats speech varieties of English and Afrikaans gamtaal [gam language], which is an appropriation of the term gam, a reference to the curse of Ham and justifications for slavery (Adhikari 95; Haupt Stealing Empire 237). POC’s appropriation of the term gam in celebration of Cape Flats speech varieties challenge the shame attached to coloured identity and the linguistic practices of subjects classified as coloured. On a track called “Gamtaal” off Phunk Phlow, the crew samples an assortment of recordings from Cape Flats speech communities and capture ordinary people speaking in public and domestic spaces (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”). In one audio snippet we hear an older woman saying apologetically, “Onse praatie suiwer Afrikaan nie. Onse praat kombius Afrikaans” (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”).It is this shame for black modes of speech that POC challenges on this celebratory track and Jansen takes this further by both making an argument against notions of racial and linguistic purity and performing an example of translanguaging. This is important in light of research that suggests that dominant research on the creole history of Afrikaans – specifically, the Cape Muslim contribution to Afrikaans – has been overlooked (Davids 15). This oversight effectively amounted to cultural appropriation as the construction of Afrikaans as a ‘pure’ language with Dutch origins served the Afrikaner Nationalist project when the National Party came into power in 1948 and began to justify its plans to implement legislated apartheid. POC’s act of appropriating the denigrated term gamtaal in service of a Black Consciousness-inspired affirmation of colouredness, which they position as part of the black experience, thus points to alternative ways in which people of colour cand both express and define themselves in defiance of apartheid.Jansen’s work with the hip-hop theater project Afrikaaps reconceptualised gamtaal as Afrikaaps, a combination of the term Afrikaans and Kaaps. Kaaps means from the Cape – as in Cape Town (the city) or the Cape Flats, which is where many people classified as coloured were forcibly relocated under the Group Areas Act under apartheid (cf. McDonald; Salo; Alim and Haupt). Taking its cue from POC and Brasse vannie Kaap’s Mr FAT, who asserted that “gamtaal is legal” (Haupt, “Black Thing” 176), the Afrikaaps cast sang, “Afrikaaps is legal” (Afrikaaps). Conclusion: Agency and the Transportability of Mobile MatricesJansen pursues this line of thought by contending that the construction of Shaka Zulu’s kingdom involved mixing many tribes (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”), thereby alluding to arguments that narratives about Shaka Zulu were developed in service of Zulu nationalism to construct Zulu identity as bounded and fixed (Harries 105). Such constructions were essential to the apartheid state's justifications for establishing Bantustans, separate homelands established along the lines of clearly defined and differentiated ethnic identities (Harries 105). Writing about the use of myths and symbols during apartheid, Patrick Harries argues that in Kwazulu, “the governing Inkatha Freedom Party ... created a vivid and sophisticated vision of the Zulu past” (Harries 105). Likewise, Emile YX? contends that isiXhosa’s clicks come from the Khoi (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; Afrikaaps). Hence, the idea of the Khoi San’s lineage and history as being separate from that of other African communities in Southern Africa is challenged. He thus challenges the idea of pure Zulu or Xhosa identities and drives the point home by sampling traditional Zulu music, as opposed to conventional hip-hop beats.Effectively, colonial strategies of tribalisation as a divide and rule strategy through the reification of linguistic and cultural practices are challenged, thereby reminding us of the “transportability of mobile matrices” and “fluidity of identities” (Alim 104, 105). In short, identities as well as cultural and linguistic practices were never bounded and static, but always-already hybrid, being constantly made and remade in a series of negotiations. This perspective is in line with research that demonstrates that race is socially and politically constructed and discredits biologically essentialist understandings of race (Yudell 13-14; Tattersall and De Salle 3). This is not to ignore the asymmetrical relations of power that enable cultural appropriation and racism (Hart 138), be it in the context of legislated apartheid, colonialism or in the age of corporate globalisation or Empire (cf. Haupt, Static; Hardt & Negri). But, even here, as Alim suggests, one should not underestimate the agency of subjects on the local level to produce alternative forms of expression and self-representation.ReferencesAdhikari, Mohamed. "The Sons of Ham: Slavery and the Making of Coloured Identity." South African Historical Journal 27.1 (1992): 95-112.Alim, H. Samy “Translocal Style Communities: Hip Hop Youth as Cultural Theorists of Style, Language and Globalization”. Pragmatics 19.1 (2009):103-127. Alim, H. Samy, and Adam Haupt. “Reviving Soul(s): Hip Hop as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in the U.S. & South Africa”. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Educational Justice. Ed. Django Paris and H. Samy Alim. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2017 (forthcoming). Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Modernity. London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.Canagarajah, Suresh. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London & New York: Routledge, 2013.Canagarajah, Suresh. “Codemeshing in Academic Writing: Identifying Teachable Strategies of Translanguaging”. The Modern Language Journal 95.3 (2011): 401-417.Creese, Angela, and Adrian Blackledge. “Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching?” The Modern Language Journal 94.1 (2010): 103-115. Davids, Achmat. The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims. Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2011.Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Journal of Pan African Studies, 1963, 2009 (eBook).Erasmus, Zimitri. “Introduction.” Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. Ed. Zimitri Erasmus. Cape Town: Kwela Books & SA History Online, 2001.Fanon, Frantz. “The Fact of Blackness”. Black Skins, White Masks. London: Pluto Press: London, 1986. 48 Hours. “Black Noise to Perform at Kennedy Center in the USA”. 11 Mar. 2014. <http://48hours.co.za/2014/03/11/black-noise-to-perform-at-kennedy-center-in-the-usa/>. Haupt, Adam. Static: Race & Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media & Film. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2012.———. Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2008. ———. “Black Thing: Hip-Hop Nationalism, ‘Race’ and Gender in Prophets of da City and Brasse vannie Kaap.” Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. Ed. Zimitri Erasmus. Cape Town: Kwela Books & SA History Online, 2001.Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. London & Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000.Hart, J. “Translating and Resisting Empire: Cultural Appropriation and Postcolonial Studies”. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. Eds. B. Ziff and P.V. Roa. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997.Harries, Patrick. “Imagery, Symbolism and Tradition in a South African Bantustan: Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Inkatha, and Zulu History”. History and Theory 32.4, Beiheft 32: History Making in Africa (1993): 105-125. Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge, 1979.MacDonald, Michael. Why Race Matters in South Africa. University of Kwazulu-Natal Press: Scottsville, 2006.Salo, Elaine. “Negotiating Gender and Personhood in the New South Africa: Adolescent Women and Gangsters in Manenberg Township on the Cape Flats.” Journal of European Cultural Studies 6.3 (2003): 345–65.Tattersall, Ian, and Rob De Salle. Race? Debunking a Scientific Myth. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2011.TheatreAfrikaaps. Afrikaaps. The Glasshouse, 2011.FilmsValley, Dylan, dir. Afrikaaps. Plexus Films, 2010. MusicProphets of da City. “Gamtaal.” Phunk Phlow. South Africa: Ku Shu Shu, 1995.Prophets of da City. “Cape Crusader.” Ghetto Code. South Africa: Ku Shu Shu & Ghetto Ruff, 1997.YX?, Emile. “Mix En Meng It Op.” Take Our Power Back. Cape Town: Cape Flats Uprising Records, 2015.

“As the old technologies become automatic and invisible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what’s new”—Dennis Baron, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stage of Literacy Technologies Popular music is firmly rooted within realist practice, or what has been called the "culture of authenticity" associated with modernism. As Lawrence Grossberg notes, the accelleration of the rate of change in modern life caused, in post-war youth culture, an identity crisis or "lived contradiction" that gave rock (particularly) and popular music (generally) a peculiar position in regard to notions of authenticity. Grossberg places rock's authenticity within the "difference" it maintains from other cultural forms, and notes that its difference "can be justified aesthetically or ideologically, or in terms of the social position of the audiences, or by the economics of its production, or through the measure of its popularity or the statement of its politics" (205-6). Popular music scholars have not adequately addressed issues of authenticity and individuality. Two of the most important questions to be asked are: How is authenticity communicated in popular music? What is the site of the interpretation of authenticity? It is important to ask about sound, technology, about the attempt to understand the ideal and the image, the natural and artificial. It is these that make clear the strongest connections between popular music and contemporary culture. Popular music is a particularly appropriate site for the study of authenticity as a cultural category, for several reasons. For one thing, other media do not follow us, as aural media do, into malls, elevators, cars, planes. Nor do they wait for us, as a tape player paused and ready to play. What is important is not that music is "everywhere" but, to borrow from Vivian Sobchack, that it creates a "here" that can be transported anywhere. In fact, we are able to walk around enveloped by a personal aural environment, thanks to a Sony Walkman.1 Also, it is more difficult to shut out the aural than the visual. Closing one's ears does not entirely shut out sound. There is, additionally, the sense that sound and music are interpreted from within, that is, that they resonate through and within the body, and as such engage with one's self in a fashion that coincides with Charles Taylor's claim that the "ideal of authenticity" is an inner-directed one. It must be noted that authenticity is not, however, communicated only via music, but via text and image. Grossberg noted the "primacy of sound" in rock music, and the important link between music, visual image, and authenticity: Visual style as conceived in rock culture is usually the stage for an outrageous and self-conscious inauthenticity... . It was here -- in its visual presentation -- that rock often most explicitly manifested both an ironic resistance to the dominant culture and its sympathies with the business of entertainment ... . The demand for live performance has always expressed the desire for the visual mark (and proof) of authenticity. (208) But that relationship can also be reversed: Music and sound serve in some instances to provide the aural mark and proof of authenticity. Consider, for instance, the "tear" in the voice that Jensen identifies in Hank Williams's singing, and in that of Patsy Cline. For the latter, voicing, in this sense, was particularly important, as it meant more than a singing style, it also involved matters of self-identity, as Jensen appropriately associates with the move of country music from "hometown" to "uptown" (101). Cline's move toward a more "uptown" style involved her visual image, too. At a significant turning point in her career, Faron Young noted, Cline "left that country girl look in those western outfits behind and opted for a slicker appearance in dresses and high fashion gowns" (Jensen 101). Popular music has forged a link with visual media, and in some sense music itself has become more visual (though not necessarily less aural) the more it has engaged with industrial processes in the entertainment industry. For example, engagement with music videos and film soundtracks has made music a part of the larger convergence of mass media forms. Alongside that convergence, the use of music in visual media has come to serve as adjunct to visual symbolisation. One only need observe the increasingly commercial uses to which music is put (as in advertising, film soundtracks and music videos) to note ways in which music serves image. In the literature from a variety of disciplines, including communication, art and music, it has been argued that music videos are the visualisation of music. But in many respects the opposite is true. Music videos are the auralisation of the visual. Music serves many of the same purposes as sound does generally in visual media. One can find a strong argument for the use of sound as supplement to visual media in Silverman's and Altman's work. For Silverman, sound in cinema has largely been overlooked (pun intended) in favor of the visual image, but sound is a more effective (and perhaps necessary) element for willful suspension of disbelief. One may see this as well in the development of Dolby Surround Sound, and in increased emphasis on sound engineering among video and computer game makers, as well as the development of sub-woofers and high-fidelity speakers as computer peripherals. Another way that sound has become more closely associated with the visual is through the ongoing evolution of marketing demands within the popular music industry that increasingly rely on visual media and force image to the front. Internet technologies, particularly the WorldWideWeb (WWW), are also evidence of a merging of the visual and aural (see Hayward). The development of low-cost desktop video equipment and WWW publishing, CD-i, CD-ROM, DVD, and other technologies, has meant that visual images continue to form part of the industrial routine of the music business. The decrease in cost of many of these technologies has also led to the adoption of such routines among individual musicians, small/independent labels, and producers seeking to mimic the resources of major labels (a practice that has become considerably easier via the Internet, as it is difficult to determine capital resources solely from a WWW site). Yet there is another facet to the evolution of the link between the aural and visual. Sound has become more visual by way of its representation during its production (a representation, and process, that has largely been ignored in popular music studies). That representation has to do with the digitisation of sound, and the subsequent transformation sound and music can undergo after being digitised and portrayed on a computer screen. Once digitised, sound can be made visual in any number of ways, through traditional methods like music notation, through representation as audio waveform, by way of MIDI notation, bit streams, or through representation as shapes and colors (as in recent software applications particularly for children, like Making Music by Morton Subotnick). The impetus for these representations comes from the desire for increased control over sound (see Jones, Rock Formation) and such control seems most easily accomplished by way of computers and their concomitant visual technologies (monitors, printers). To make computers useful tools for sound recording it is necessary to employ some form of visual representation for the aural, and the flexibility of modern computers allows for new modes of predominately visual representation. Each of these connections between the aural and visual is in turn related to technology, for as audio technology develops within the entertainment industry it makes sense for synergistic development to occur with visual media technologies. Yet popular music scholars routinely analyse aural and visual media in isolation from one another. The challenge for popular music studies and music philosophy posed by visual media technologies, that they must attend to spatiality and context (both visual and aural), has not been taken up. Until such time as it is, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to engage issues of authenticity, because they will remain rootless instead of situated within the experience of music as fully sensual (in some cases even synaesthetic). Most of the traditional judgments of authenticity among music critics and many popular music scholars involve space and time, the former in terms of the movement of music across cultures and the latter in terms of history. None rely on notions of the "situatedness" of the listener or musicmaker in a particular aural, visual and historical space. Part of the reason for the lack of such an understanding arises from the very means by which popular music is created. We have become accustomed to understanding music as manipulation of sound, and so far as most modern music production is concerned such manipulation occurs as much visually as aurally, by cutting, pasting and otherwise altering audio waveforms on a computer screen. Musicians no more record music than they record fingering; they engage in sound recording. And recording engineers and producers rely less and less on sound and more on sight to determine whether a recording conforms to the demands of digital reproduction.2 Sound, particularly when joined with the visual, becomes a means to build and manipulate the environment, virtual and non-virtual (see Jones, "Sound"). Sound & Music As we construct space through sound, both in terms of audio production (e.g., the use of reverberation devices in recording studios) and in terms of everyday life (e.g., perception of aural stimuli, whether by ear or vibration in the body, from points surrounding us), we centre it within experience. Sound combines the psychological and physiological. Audio engineer George Massenburg noted that in film theaters: You couldn't utilise the full 360-degree sound space for music because there was an "exit sign" phenomena [sic]. If you had a lot of audio going on in the back, people would have a natural inclination to turn around and stare at the back of the room. (Massenburg 79-80) However, he went on to say, beyond observations of such reactions to multichannel sound technology, "we don't know very much". Research in psychoacoustics being used to develop virtual audio systems relies on such reactions and on a notion of human hardwiring for stimulus response (see Jones, "Sense"). But a major stumbling block toward the development of those systems is that none are able to account for individual listeners' perceptions. It is therefore important to consider the individual along with the social dimension in discussions of sound and music. For instance, the term "sound" is deployed in popular music to signify several things, all of which have to do with music or musical performance, but none of which is music. So, for instance, musical groups or performers can have a "sound", but it is distinguishable from what notes they play. Entire music scenes can have "sounds", but the music within such scenes is clearly distinct and differentiated. For the study of popular music this is a significant but often overlooked dimension. As Grossberg argues, "the authenticity of rock was measured by its sound" (207). Visually, he says, popular music is suspect and often inauthentic (sometimes purposefully so), and it is grounded in the aural. Similarly in country music Jensen notes that the "Nashville Sound" continually evoked conflicting definitions among fans and musicians, but that: The music itself was the arena in and through which claims about the Nashville Sound's authenticity were played out. A certain sound (steel guitar, with fiddle) was deemed "hard" or "pure" country, in spite of its own commercial history. (84) One should, therefore, attend to the interpretive acts associated with sound and its meaning. But why has not popular music studies engaged in systematic analysis of sound at the level of the individual as well as the social? As John Shepherd put it, "little cultural theoretical work in music is concerned with music's sounds" ("Value" 174). Why should this be a cause for concern? First, because Shepherd claims that sound is not "meaningful" in the traditional sense. Second, because it leads us to re-examine the question long set to the side in popular music studies: What is music? The structural homology, the connection between meaning and social formation, is a foundation upon which the concept of authenticity in popular music stands. Yet the ability to label a particular piece of music "good" shifts from moment to moment, and place to place. Frith understates the problem when he writes that "it is difficult ... to say how musical texts mean or represent something, and it is difficult to isolate structures of musical creation or control" (56). Shepherd attempts to overcome this difficulty by emphasising that: Music is a social medium in sound. What [this] means ... is that the sounds of music provide constantly moving and complex matrices of sounds in which individuals may invest their own meanings ... [however] while the matrices of sounds which seemingly constitute an individual "piece" of music can accommodate a range of meanings, and thereby allow for negotiability of meaning, they cannot accommodate all possible meanings. (Shepherd, "Art") It must be acknowledged that authenticity is constructed, and that in itself is an argument against the most common way to think of authenticity. If authenticity implies something about the "pure" state of an object or symbol then surely such a state is connected to some "objective" rendering, one not possible according to Shepherd's claims. In some sense, then, authenticity is autonomous, its materialisation springs not from any necessary connection to sound, image, text, but from individual acts of interpretation, typically within what in literary criticism has come to be known as "interpretive communities". It is not hard to illustrate the point by generalising and observing that rock's notion of authenticity is captured in terms of songwriting, but that songwriters are typically identified with places (e.g. Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building, Liverpool, etc.). In this way there is an obvious connection between authenticity and authorship (see Jones, "Popular Music Studies") and geography (as well in terms of musical "scenes", e.g. the "Philly Sound", the "Sun Sound", etc.). The important thing to note is the resultant connection between the symbolic and the physical worlds rooted (pun intended) in geography. As Redhead & Street put it: The idea of "roots" refers to a number of aspects of the musical process. There is the audience in which the musician's career is rooted ... . Another notion of roots refers to music. Here the idea is that the sounds and the style of the music should continue to resemble the source from which it sprang ... . The issue ... can be detected in the argument of those who raise doubts about the use of musical high-technology by African artists. A final version of roots applies to the artist's sociological origins. (180) It is important, consequently, to note that new technologies, particularly ones associated with the distribution of music, are of increasing importance in regulating the tension between alienation and progress mentioned earlier, as they are technologies not simply of musical production and consumption, but of geography. That the tension they mediate is most readily apparent in legal skirmishes during an unsettled era for copyright law (see Brown) should not distract scholars from understanding their cultural significance. These technologies are, on the one hand, "liberating" (see Hayward, Young, and Marsh) insofar as they permit greater geographical "reach" and thus greater marketing opportunities (see Fromartz), but on the other hand they permit less commercial control, insofar as they permit digitised music to freely circulate without restriction or compensation, to the chagrin of copyright enthusiasts. They also create opportunities for musical collaboration (see Hayward) between performers in different zones of time and space, on a scale unmatched since the development of multitracking enabled the layering of sound. Most importantly, these technologies open spaces for the construction of authenticity that have hitherto been unavailable, particularly across distances that have largely separated cultures and fan communities (see Paul). The technologies of Internetworking provide yet another way to make connections between authenticity, music and sound. Community and locality (as Redhead & Street, as well as others like Sara Cohen and Ruth Finnegan, note) are the elements used by audience and artist alike to understand the authenticity of a performer or performance. The lived experience of an artist, in a particular nexus of time and space, is to be somehow communicated via music and interpreted "properly" by an audience. But technologies of Internetworking permit the construction of alternative spaces, times and identities. In no small way that has also been the situation with the mediation of music via most recordings. They are constructed with a sense of space, consumed within particular spaces, at particular times, in individual, most often private, settings. What the network technologies have wrought is a networked audience for music that is linked globally but rooted in the local. To put it another way, the range of possibilities when it comes to interpretive communities has widened, but the experience of music has not significantly shifted, that is, the listener experiences music individually, and locally. Musical activity, whether it is defined as cultural or commercial practice, is neither flat nor autonomous. It is marked by ever-changing tastes (hence not flat) but within an interpretive structure (via "interpretive communities"). Musical activity must be understood within the nexus of the complex relations between technical, commercial and cultural processes. As Jensen put it in her analysis of Patsy Cline's career: Those who write about culture production can treat it as a mechanical process, a strategic construction of material within technical or institutional systems, logical, rational, and calculated. But Patsy Cline's recording career shows, among other things, how this commodity production view must be linked to an understanding of culture as meaning something -- as defining, connecting, expressing, mattering to those who participate with it. (101) To achieve that type of understanding will require that popular music scholars understand authenticity and music in a symbolic realm. Rather than conceiving of authenticity as a limited resource (that is, there is only so much that is "pure" that can go around), it is important to foreground its symbolic and ever-changing character. Put another way, authenticity is not used by musician or audience simply to label something as such, but rather to mean something about music that matters at that moment. Authenticity therefore does not somehow "slip away", nor does a "pure" authentic exist. Authenticity in this regard is, as Baudrillard explains concerning mechanical reproduction, "conceived according to (its) very reproducibility ... there are models from which all forms proceed according to modulated differences" (56). Popular music scholars must carefully assess the affective dimensions of fans, musicians, and also record company executives, recording producers, and so on, to be sensitive to the deeply rooted construction of authenticity and authentic experience throughout musical processes. Only then will there emerge an understanding of the structures of feeling that are central to the experience of music. Footnotes For analyses of the Walkman's role in social settings and popular music consumption see du Gay; Hosokawa; and Chen. It has been thus since the advent of disc recording, when engineers would watch a record's grooves through a microscope lens as it was being cut to ensure grooves would not cross over one into another. References Altman, Rick. "Television/Sound." Studies in Entertainment. Ed. Tania Modleski. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986. 39-54. Baudrillard, Jean. Symbolic Death and Exchange. London: Sage, 1993. Brown, Ronald. Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1995. Chen, Shing-Ling. "Electronic Narcissism: College Students' Experiences of Walkman Listening." Annual meeting of the International Communication Association. Washington, D.C. 1993. Du Gay, Paul, et al. Doing Cultural Studies. London: Sage, 1997. Frith, Simon. Sound Effects. New York: Pantheon, 1981. Fromartz, Steven. "Starts-ups Sell Garage Bands, Bowie on Web." Reuters newswire, 4 Dec. 1996. Grossberg, Lawrence. We Gotta Get Out of This Place. London: Routledge, 1992. Hayward, Philip. "Enterprise on the New Frontier." Convergence 1.2 (Winter 1995): 29-44. Hosokawa, Shuhei. "The Walkman Effect." Popular Music 4 (1984). Jensen, Joli. The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialisation and Country Music. Nashville, Vanderbilt UP, 1998. Jones, Steve. Rock Formation: Music, Technology and Mass Communication. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. ---. "Popular Music Studies and Critical Legal Studies" Stanford Humanities Review 3.2 (Fall 1993): 77-90. ---. "A Sense of Space: Virtual Reality, Authenticity and the Aural." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10.3 (Sep. 1993), 238-52. ---. "Sound, Space & Digitisation." Media Information Australia 67 (Feb. 1993): 83-91. Marrsh, Brian. "Musicians Adopt Technology to Market Their Skills." Wall Street Journal 14 Oct. 1994: C2. Massenburg, George. "Recording the Future." EQ (Apr. 1997): 79-80. Paul, Frank. "R&B: Soul Music Fans Make Cyberspace Their Meeting Place." Reuters newswire, 11 July 1996. Redhead, Steve, and John Street. "Have I the Right? Legitimacy, Authenticity and Community in Folk's Politics." Popular Music 8.2 (1989). Shepherd, John. "Art, Culture and Interdisciplinarity." Davidson Dunston Research Lecture. Carleton University, Canada. 3 May 1992. ---. "Value and Power in Music." The Sound of Music: Meaning and Power in Culture. Eds. John Shepherd and Peter Wicke. Cambridge: Polity, 1993. Silverman, Kaja. The Acoustic Mirror. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1988. Sobchack, Vivian. Screening Space. New York: Ungar, 1982. Young, Charles. "Aussie Artists Use Internet and Bootleg CDs to Protect Rights." Pro Sound News July 1995. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Steve Jones. "Seeing Sound, Hearing Image: 'Remixing' Authenticity in Popular Music Studies." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/remix.php>. Chicago style: Steve Jones, "Seeing Sound, Hearing Image: 'Remixing' Authenticity in Popular Music Studies," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/remix.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Steve Jones. (1999) Seeing Sound, Hearing Image: "Remixing" Authenticity in Popular Music Studies. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/remix.php> ([your date of access]).

I. First Brexit, then Trump: Has the past year or so ushered in a “wave” (Weisberg), a “barrage” (Desmond-Harris) or a “deluge” (Sidahmed) of that notoriously noxious affect, hate? It certainly feels that way to those of us identified with progressive social and political causes—those of us troubled, not just by Trump’s recent electoral victory, but by the far-right forces to which that victory has given voice. And yet the questions still hanging over efforts to quantify emotional or affective states leaves the claim that there has been a clear spike in hate moot (Ngai 26; Massumi 136-7; Ahmed, Promise 3-8). So let’s try asking a different question. Has this same period seen a rise, across liberal media platforms, in the rhetorical work of “hate-attribution”? Here, at least, an answer seems in readier reach. For no one given to scrolling distractedly through liberal Anglophone media outlets, from The New York Times, to The Guardian, to Slate, will be unfamiliar with a species of journalism that, in reporting the appalling activities associated with what has become known as the “alt-right” (Main; Wallace-Wells; Gourarie), articulates those activities in the rubric of a calculable uptick in hate itself.Before the U.S. Presidential election, this fledgling journalistic genre was already testing its wings, its first shudderings felt everywhere from Univision anchor Jorge Ramos’s widely publicized documentary, Hate Rising (2016), which explores the rise of white supremacist movements across the South-West U.S, to an edition of Slate’s Trumpcast entitled “The Alt-Right and a Deluge of Hate,” which broached the torment-by-Twitter of left-wing journalist David French. In the wake of the election, and the appalling acts of harassment and intimidation it seemed to authorize, the genre gained further momentum—leading to the New Yorker’s “Hate Is on the Rise After Trump’s Election,” to The Guardian’s “Trump’s Election led to Barrage of Hate,” and to Vox’s “The Wave of Post-Election Hate Reportedly Sweeping the Nation, Explained.” And it still has traction today, judging not just by James King’s recent year-in-review column, “The Year in Hate: From Donald Trump to the Rise of the Alt-Right,” but by Salon’s “A Short History of Hate” which tracks the alt-right’s meteoric 2016 rise to prominence, and the New York Times’ recently launched hate-speech aggregator, “This Week in Hate.”As should already be clear from these brisk, thumbnail accounts of the texts in question, the phenomena alluded to by the titular term “hate” are not instances of hate per se, but rather instances of “hate-speech.” The word “hate,” in other words, is being deployed here not literally, to refer to an emotional state, but metonymically, as a shorthand for “hate-speech”—a by-now widely conventionalized and legally codified parlance originating with the U.N. Declaration to describe “violent or violence-inciting speech or acts that “aim or intend to inflict injury, or incite prejudice or hatred, against persons of groups” because of their ethnic, religious, sexual or social affiliation. And there is no doubt that, beyond the headlines, these articles do incredibly important work, drawing connections between, and drawing attention to, a host of harmful activities associated with the so-called “alt-right”—from a pair of mangled, pretzel-shaped swastikas graffiti-ed in a children’s playground, to acts of harassment, intimidation and violence against women, African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, and LGBTQ people, to Trump’s own racist, xenophobic and misogynistic tweets. Yet the fact that an emotion-term like hate is being mobilized across these texts as a metonym for the “alt-right” is no oratorical curio. Rather, it perpetuates a pervasive way of thinking about the relationship between the alt-right (a political phenomenon) and hate (an emotional phenomenon) that should give pause to those of us committed to mining that vein of cultural symptomatology now consigned, across the social sciences and critical humanities, to affect theory. Specifically, these headlines inscribe, in miniature, a kind of micro-assessment, a micro-geography and micro-theory of hate. First, they suggest that, even prior to its incarnation in specific, and dangerous, forms of speech or action, hate is in and of itself anathema, a phenomenon so unquestioningly dangerous that a putative “rise” or “spike” in its net presence provides ample pretext for a news headline. Second, they propose that hate may be localized to a particular social or political group—a group subsisting, unsurprisingly, on that peculiarly contested frontier between the ideological alt-right and the American Midwest. And third, they imply that hate is so indubitably the single most significant source of the xenophobic, racist and sexist activities they go on to describe that it may be casually used as these activities’ lexical proxy. What is crystallizing here, I suggest, is what scholars of rhetoric dub a rhetorical “constellation” (Campbell and Jamieson 332)—a constellation from which hate emerges as, a) inherently problematic, b) localizable to the “alt-right,” and, c) the primary engine of the various activities and expressions we associate with them. This constellation of conventions for thinking about hate and its relationship to the activities of right-wing extremist movement has coalesced into a “genre” we might dub the genre of “hate-attribution.” Yet while it’s far from clear that the genre is an effective one in a political landscape that’s fast becoming a political battleground, it hasn’t appeared by chance. Treating “hate,” then, less as a descriptive “grid of analysis” (Sedgwick 152), than as a rhetorical projectile, this essay opens by interrogating the “hate-attribution” genre’s logic and querying its efficacy. Having done so, it approaches the concept of “alternatives” by asking: how might calling time on the genre help us think differently about both hate itself and about the forces catalyzing, and catalyzed by, Trump’s presidential campaign? II.The rhetorical power of the genre of hate-attribution, of course, isn’t too difficult to pin down. An emotion so thoroughly discredited that its assignment is now in and of itself a term of abuse (see, for example, the O.E.D’s freshly-expanded definition of the noun “hater”), hate is an emotion the Judeo-Christian tradition deems not just responsible for but practically akin to murder (John 3:1). In part as a result of this tradition, hate has proven thoroughly resistant to efforts to elevate it from the status of an expression of a subject’s pestiferous inner life to the status of a polemical response to an object in the world. Indeed, while a great deal of the critical energy amassing under the rubric of “affect theory” has recently been put into recuperating the strategic or diagnostic value of emotions long scorned as irrelevant to oppositional struggle—from irritation and envy, to depression, anger and shame (Ngai; Cvetkovich; Gould; Love)—hate has notably not been among them. In fact, those rare scholarly accounts of affect that do address “hate,” notably Ahmed’s excellent work on right-wing extremist groups in the United Kingdom, display an understandable reluctance to rehabilitate it for progressive thought (Cultural Politics). It should come as no surprise, then, that the genre of “hate-attribution” has a rare rhetorical power. In identifying “hate” as the source of a particular position, gesture or speech-act, we effectively drain said position, gesture or speech-act of political agency or representational power—reducing it from an at-least-potentially polemical action in or response to the world, to the histrionic expression of a reprehensible personhood. Yet because hate’s near-taboo status holds across the ideological and political spectrum, what is less clear is why the genre of hate-attribution has achieved such cachet in the liberal media in particular. The answer, I would argue, lies in the fact that the work of hate-attribution dovetails all too neatly with liberal political theory’s longstanding tendency to laminate its social and civic ideals to affective ideals like “love,” “sympathy,” “compassion,” and, when in a less demonstrative humor, “tolerance”. As Martha Nussbaum’s Political Emotions has recently shown, this tradition has an impressive philosophical pedigree, running from Aristotle’s philia (16), John Locke’s “toleration” and David Hume’s “sympathy” (69-75), to the twentieth century’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with its promotion of “tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups.” And while the labour of what Lauren Berlant calls “liberal sentimentality” (“Poor Eliza”, 636) has never quite died away, it does seem to have found new strength with the emergence of the “intimate public sphere” (Berlant, Queen)—from its recent popular apotheosis in the Clinton campaign’s notorious “Love Trumps Hate” (a slogan in which “love,” unfortunately, came to look a lot like resigned technocratic quietism in the face of ongoing economic and environmental crisis [Zizek]), to its revival as a philosophical project among progressive scholars, many of them under the sway of the so-called “affective turn” (Nussbaum; Hardt; Sandoval; hooks). No surprise, then, that liberalism’s struggle to yoke itself to “love” should have as its eerie double a struggle to locate among its ideological and political enemies an increasingly reified “hate”. And while the examples of this project we’ve touched on so far have hailed from popular media, this set of protocols for thinking about hate and its relationship to the activities of right-wing extremist movements is not unique to media circles. It’s there in political discourse, as in ex-DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s announcement, on MSNBC, that “Americans will unite against [Trump’s] hatred.” And it’s there, too, in academic media studies, from FLOW journal’s November 2016 call for papers inviting respondents to comment, among other things, on “the violence and hatred epitomized by Trump and his supporters,” to the SCMS conference’s invitation to members to participate in a pop-up panel entitled “Responding to Hate, Disenfranchisement and the Loss of the Commons.” Yet while the labor of hate-attribution to which many progressive forces have become attached carries an indisputable rhetorical force, it also has some profound rhetorical flaws. The very same stigma, after all, that makes “hate” such a powerful explanatory grenade to throw also makes it an incredibly tough one to land. As Ahmed’s analysis of the online rhetoric of white supremacist organizations should remind us (Cultural Politics), most groups structured around inciting and promoting violence against women and minorities identify, perversely, not as hate groups, but as movements propelled by the love of race and nation. And while left-wing pundits pronounce “hate” the signature emotion of a racist, misogynist Trump-voting right, supporters of Trump ascribe it, just as routinely, to the so-called “liberal elite,” a group whose mythical avatars—from the so-called “Social Justice Warrior” or “SJW,” to the supercilious Washington politico—are said to brand “ordinary [white, male] Americans” indiscriminately as racist, misogynistic, homophobic buffoons. Thus, for example, The Washington Post’s uncanny, far-right journalistic alter-ego, The Washington Times, dubs the SPLC a “liberal hate group”; the Wikipedia mirror-site, Conservapedia, recasts liberal objections to gun violence as “liberal hate speech” driven by an “irrational aversion to weapons”; while one blood-curdling sub-genre of reportage on Steve Bannon’s crypto-fascist soapbox, Breitbart News, is devoted to denouncing what it calls “ ‘anti-White Racism.’” It’s easy enough, of course, to defend the hate-attribution genre’s liberal incarnations while dismissing its right-wing variants as cynical, opportunistic shams, as Ahmed does (Cultural Politics)—thereby re-establishing the wellspring of hate where we are most comfortable locating it: among our political others. Yet to do so seems, in some sense, to perpetuate a familiar volley of hate-attribution. And to the extent that, as many media scholars have shown (Philips; Reed; Tett; Turow), our digital, networked political landscape is in danger of being reduced to a silo-ed discursive battleground, the ritual exchange of terminological grenades that everyone seems eager to propel across ideological lines, but that no one, understandably, seems willing to pick up, seems counter-productive to say the least.Even beyond the genre’s ultimate ineffectiveness, what should strike anyone used to reflecting on affect is how little justice it does to the ubiquity and intricacy of “hate” as an affective phenomenon. Hate is not and cannot be the exclusive property or preserve of one side of the political spectrum. One doesn’t have to stretch one’s critical faculties too far to see the extent to which the genre of hate-attribution participates in the emotional ballistics it condemns or seeks to redress. While trafficking in a relatively simple hate-paradigm (as a subjective emotional state that may be isolated to a particular person or group), the genre itself incarnates a more complex, socially dynamic model of hate in which the emotion operates through logics of projection perhaps best outlined by Freud. In the “hate-attribution” genre, that is, hate—like those equally abjected categories “sentimentality,” “worldliness” or “knowingness” broached by Sedgwick in her bravura analyses of “scapegoating attribution” (150-158)—finds its clearest expression in and through the labor of its own adscription. And it should come as no surprise that an emotion so widely devalued, where it is not openly prohibited, might also find expression in less overt form.Yet to say as much is by no means to discredit the genre. As legal scholar Jeremy Waldron has recently pointed out, there’s no particular reason why “the passions and emotions that lie behind a particular speech act” (34)—even up to and including hate—should devalue the speech acts they rouse. On the contrary, to pin the despicable and damaging activities of the so-called “alt right” on “hate” is, if anything, to do an injustice to a rich and complex emotion that can be as generative as it can be destructive. As Freud suggests in “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,” for example, hate may be the very seed of love, since the forms of “social feeling” (121) celebrated under the liberal rubric of “tolerance,” “love,” and “compassion,” are grounded in “the reversal of what was first a hostile feeling into a positively-toned tie in the nature of an identification” (121; italics mine). Indeed, Freud projects this same argument across a larger, historical canvas in Civilization and its Discontents, which contends that it is in our very struggle to combat our “aggressive instincts” that human communities have developed “methods intended to incite people into identifications and aim-inhibited relationships of love” (31). For Freud, that is, the practice of love is a function of ongoing efforts to see hate harnessed, commuted and transformed. III.What might it mean, then, to call time on this round of hate-attribution? What sort of “alternatives” might emerge when we abandon the assumption that political engagement entails a “struggle over who has the right to declare themselves as acting out of love” (Ahmed, Cultural Politics 131), and thus, by that same token, a struggle over the exact location and source of hate? One boon, I suggest, is the license it gives those of us on the progressive left to simply own our own hate. There’s little doubt that reframing the dangerous and destructive forms of speech fomented by Trump’s campaign, not as eruptions of hate, or even as “hate-speech,” but as speech we hate would be more consistent with what once seemed affect theory’s first commandment: to take our own affective temperature before launching headlong into critical analysis. After all, when Lauren Berlant (“Trump”) takes a stab at economist Paul Krugman’s cautions against “the Danger of Political Emotions” with the timely reminder that “all the messages are emotional,” the “messages” she’s pointing to aren’t just those of our political others, they’re ours; and the “emotions” she’s pointing to aren’t just the evacuated, insouciant versions of love championed by the Clinton campaign, they’re of the messier, or as Ngai might put it, “uglier” (2) variety—from shame, depression and anger, to, yes, I want to insist, hate.By way of jump-starting this program of hate-avowal, then, let me just say it: this essay was animated, in part, by a certain kind of hate. The social critic in me hates the breathtaking simplification of the complex social, economic and emotional forces animating Trump voters that seem to actuate some liberal commentary; the psychologist in me hates the self-mystification palpable in the left’s insistence on projecting and thus disowning its own (often very well justified) aggressions; and the human being in me, hating the kind of toxic speech to which Trump’s campaign has given rise, wishes to be able to openly declare that hatred. Among its other effects, hate is characterized by hypervigilance for lapses or failings in an object it deems problematic, a hypervigilance that—sometimes—animates analysis (Zeki and Romoya). In this sense, “hate” seems entitled to a comfortable place in the ranks of what Nick Salvato has recently dubbed criticism’s creative “obstructions”—phenomena that, while “routinely identified as detriments” to critical inquiry, may also “form the basis for … critical thinking” (1).Yet while one boon associated with this disclosure might be a welcome intellectual honesty, a more significant boon, I’d argue, is what getting this disclosure out of the way might leave room for. Opting out of the game of hurling “hate” back and forth across a super-charged political arena, that is, we might devote our column inches and Facebook posts to the less sensational but more productive task of systematically challenging the specious claims, and documenting the damaging effects, of a species of utterance (Butler; Matsuda; Waldron) we’ve grown used to simply descrying as pure, distilled “hate”. And we also might do something else. Relieved of the confident conviction that we can track “Trumpism” to a spontaneous outbreak of a single, localizable emotion, we might be able to offer a fuller account of the economic, social, political and affective forces that energize it. Certainly, hate plays a part here—although the process by which, as Isabelle Stengers puts it, affect “make[s] present, vivid and mattering … a worldly world” (371) demands that we scrutinize that hate as a syndrome, rather than simply moralize it as a sin, addressing its mainsprings in a moment marked by the nerve-fraying and life-fraying effects of what has become known across the social sciences and critical humanities as conditions of social and economic “precarity” (Muehlebach; Neil and Rossiter; Stewart).But perhaps hate’s not the only emotion tucked away under the hood. Here’s something affect theory knows today: affect moves not, as more traditional theorists of political emotion have it, “unambiguously and predictably from one’s cognitive processing,” but in ways that are messy, muddled and indirect (Gould 24). That form of speech is speech we hate. But it may not be “hate speech.” That crime is a crime we hate. But it may not be a “hate-crime.” One of the critical tactics we might crib from Berlant’s work in Cruel Optimism is that of decoding and decrypting, in even the most hateful acts, an instance of what Berlant, herself optimistically, calls “optimism.” For Berlant, after all, optimism is very often cruel, attaching itself, as it seems to have done in 2016, to scenes, objects and people that, while ultimately destined to “imped[e] the aim that brought [it to them] initially,” nevertheless came to seem, to a good portion of the electorate, the only available exponent of that classic good-life genre, “the change that’s gonna come” (“Trump” 1-2) at a moment when the Democratic party’s primary campaign promise was more of the free-market same. 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