Indigenous Brands and Social Movements

Partner: Sonia Katyal, Berkeley Law, Academic

Overview

Project Description

Have you noticed how many brands in the marketplace use indigenous/Native American - oriented terms and imagery? From the notorious Washington Team to the logo on Land of Lakes butter, indigenous imagery and appropriation is everywhere, and worthy of serious study and data analysis. This project aims to bring the work of social movements and activism to a data-intensive study of First Nations brands and trademarks in order to chart a path forward. In this project, we will study how many of these terms are owned by native vs. non-native entities, study how these brands have changed over time, and how the law might be better deployed to protect ownership of indigenously oriented trademarks, and encourage retiring marks that are considered offensive or appropriative. We are looking for students who are interested in the intersection of data analysis, law/policy, and attention to minority representation to help with data visualization and collection to create a compelling study of brands and their intersection with social movements in the marketplace.

Expected Deliverable

Data visualization over time, cross-branding representations.

What would a successful semester look like to you?

It would result in a refined dataset that is complete, and a set of visuals to help explain the data to the wider public.

Data

Models

Conclusion