Doctoral Dissertation Research: Governance of Antarctic Bioprospecting: Scientific Contribution to the Geopolitics of Property and Territory

在南极洲从生物群中寻找可提取和可盈利的财产（生物勘探）的科学研究挑战了长期以来的假设，即产权嵌套在领土国家内，因为传统的国家主权和产权在该大陆都不存在。相反，该地区作为一个国际空间由南极条约系统（ATS）管理，该系统将科学投入纳入其治理中。由于缺乏关于知识产权的明确规定，一些生物勘探者对其在南极洲进行的研究的合法性感到紧张，并对ATS施加压力，要求其为生物勘探者活动提供明确的规则。这个项目提出了三个主要问题：1)从事生物勘探管理的南极科学家如何使其合法化？2)参与其中的科学家们是否有能力改革南极的治理，还是更受其约束？3)这揭示了财产和领土之间的什么非常规关系？为了确定参与这一决策过程的群体、他们的立场、相对权力以及商业、科学和地缘政治目标，将通过档案研究、参与南极生物勘探会议的观察以及对相关参与者的半结构化访谈来收集数据。利用话语分析，可以观察到财产与领土关系的不同表述。为了理解科学家的这些表述背后的权力关系，本研究还将使用科学政策研究中的制度分析方法，包括反事实分析和过程追踪。通过对南极生物勘探制度谈判的分析，本研究不仅将确定在财产和领土之间建立的主导关系，而且将试图理解为什么沿途提出的其他关系没有被纳入其中。通过以一种新的方式观察财产和领土概念的积极配对，该项目将地缘政治和科学政策的知识领域结合在一起，这两个领域没有被仔细整合。这项研究更广泛的影响在于，它提供了对世界各地政治控制和权力至关重要的财产和领土概念如何不同于以前所假设的功能的见解。这项研究将与参与大学教学、科学活动和政策的科学家分享，因此他们处于影响所有这些活动的位置。这不仅有助于南极政策，而且更广泛地有助于有关生物勘探、产权和地缘政治战略的政策。对就管理南极洲生物勘探的制度进行谈判的复杂性进行分析，也将提高公众对这一独特大陆上的科学活动的普遍认识。作为博士论文研究改进补助金，该奖项还将为有前途的学生提供支持，使他们能够建立强大的独立研究事业。

The scientific search for extractable and profitable properties from biota (bioprospecting) in Antarctica challenges long-held assumptions that property rights are nested within territorial states because both conventional state sovereignty and property rights are absent from the continent. The area is instead governed as an international space by the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), which incorporates scientific input into its governance. The absence of clear regulations regarding intellectual property rights has made a number of bioprospectors nervous about the legitimacy of their claims to research conducted in Antarctica, and has built up pressure for the ATS to provide clear rules for bioprospecting activities. This project asks three primary questions: 1) How do Antarctic scientists engaged in the governance of bioprospecting legitimize it? 2) Are the scientists involved able to reform Antarctic governance or are they more constrained by it? 3) What non-conventional relationships between property and territory does this reveal? To identify the groups involved in this decision-making process, their standpoints, their relative power, and commercial, scientific, and geopolitical goals, data will be collected through archival research, participant observation at meetings involving Antarctic bioprospecting, and semi-structured interviews with involved actors. Utilizing discourse analysis, different articulations of the relationship between property and territory can be observed. To understand the power relations underlying those articulations by scientists, the research will also use methods of regime analysis from science policy studies, including counterfactual analysis and process tracing. Through this analysis of the negotiation of an Antarctic bioprospecting regime, this study will not only identify the dominant relationship established between property and territory, but seek to understand why others proposed along the way were not incorporated.By observing the active pairing of the concepts of property and territory in a new way, this project brings together the intellectual fields of geopolitics and science policy, which have not been carefully integrated. The broader impact of this research is that it provides insight into how the concepts of property and territory, crucial to political control and power around the world, function differently than might have been assumed before. The research will be shared with the scientists who are involved in university instruction, scientific activity, and policy and who therefore are in a position to influence all of these activities. Not only will this contribute to Antarctic policy, but also more generally to policy regarding bioprospecting, property rights, and geopolitical strategy. Analysis of the complexities of negotiating a regime for governing bioprospecting in Antarctica will also raise general public awareness of scientific activity on this unique continent. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant, this award will also provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.