AO: Foster puts forward a “feminist decolonial technoscience approach” to understanding how the “intersectional politics of gender, race, indigeneity and their colonial histories related to contestations over Hoodia” (7). Foster noted that San peoples, CSIR scientists and hoodia growers made unequal claims for belonging through attachments to differentially valued materialities of the same plant.
AO: Foster builds on critical science studies and socio-legal scholarship but notes that indigenous peoples’ theorizing of science and patent ownership as connected to colonial histories provides a critical perspective that is more useful for the book (8).
AO: Foster is interested in attending to scale by looking at one plant and its different modalities of scale (in comparison to Osseo-Asare who looks at several different indigenous plants).
AO: She notes an intent to destabilize binaries (by focusing on multiple scales beyond just the nation-state) but also uses the terms “Global South” and “Global North” without describing or problematizing them (15).
AO: Foster focuses on concepts of patentability, materiality, and belonging (rather than epistemic citizenship) to pay attention to how San peoples, CSIR scientists and hoodia growers were making claims to materialities and ways of knowing Hoodia.
AO: Foster notes the importance of naming and highlights why she uses capital I for “Indigenous” (to note the name of specific groups).
