Identifying ‘authorized users’, identifying kin: negotiating relational worlds through Geographical Indications registration

Abstract

The Geographical Indications of India Act requires a detailed description of ‘authorized users’ and ‘producers’ without concern for how these ‘producers’/ ‘authorized users’ are identified and what are the outcomes of such identification. Artisans identified as producers of GI registered ‘Cheriyal Painting’ of Telangana primarily belong to one genetically related family. Apart from members of the Danalakota household, GI also enumerates families of apprentices as ‘producers’. This article will highlight two things. First, it will demonstrate the way in which identification of ‘producers’/ ‘authorized users’ replicates not only the relational worlds within which producers exist but also the ‘obligations and moral imperatives’ embedded within those relations. Second, identifying oneself as a ‘producer’/ ‘authorized user’ requires distinguishing and individualizing one’s relatedness with the Danalakota family; promises of welfare by the state then become accessible only by becoming kin and distinguishing oneself as kin.