Valorization of knowledge and peripheral decumulation

the case of Stevia

Abstract

The cognitive production of peripheral actors of the global intellectual property system is far from being an accessory phenomenon in capitalist dynamics. It presents, many times, a new physiognomy when the path of knowledge is followed, in extensive processes both historically and geographically, with the interest of observing how value creation occurs and what are the mechanisms of circulation, transformation, securitization and accumulation of productive knowledge. This theoretical-methodological strategy is adopted in the book Stevia. Knowledge, intellectual property and capital accumulation, to reconstruct the processes of capital valorization and accumulation around Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni. This empirical analysis, which reveals the joint unfolding of the decumulation process in the people and country of origin of the sweet herb, contributes to a series of economic and sociological studies aimed at drawing lessons from history, and not from regulations and discourses morals currently advocated by intellectual property exporting corporations and nations, to expand the endogenous knowledge base in developing countries.