ABSTRACT
This chapter delineates the features of a distinctive terrain, emerging political economies and political ecologies in which cultural property's futures in the Global South are likely to unfold and aspirations for alternative futures politically articulated in a culturally possessive fashion. The position is advanced by way of a contribution to the anthropological literature on "actually existing neoliberalism" as an uneven or variegated field of market-oriented regulatory restructuring, with special emphasis on informational capitalism and new forms of cultural governmentality. These include extensions of trade-based intellectual property (IP), in situ means for protecting genetic resources and traditional knowledge (TK), regimes for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, and new forms of conservation management. Neoliberal government is supported by globalizing processes driven by information technologies in which culture is not only drawn into relations of economic exchange but becomes a force of production in its own right.
