Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2014
The protection of Geographical Indications (GIs) is often conceived as a way to preserve cultural creativity embedded in a specific place. But can GIs be understood as a mode of cultural creativity in their own right? This paper tries to answer this question through a case-study which compares three specific GIs for wines in three different countries (Australia, Italy and Canada). By using an interpretative analysis based on narratives, the paper highlights how GIs are the protagonist of legal narratives in terms of cultural creativity and, at one and the same time, something extrinsic and intrinsic to a given social and productive environment, contributing to defining that same notion of place.
The research leading to these results has been funded under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), grant agreement no. 272852. I wish to thank for comments on earlier drafts Federica Giovanella, Umberto Izzo, David Lametti, Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse, David Winickoff, the two anonymous reviewers, and the participants to the 4th Annual Workshop of the International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property, held at the London School of Economics, 25–26 June 2012, and to the First Private Law Consortium, held at Tel Aviv, 26–27 June 2013. The usual caveats apply.