From Marginal to Mainstream: The Revival, Transformation and Boom of Plant Medicine

Abstract

This article examines how a scientific research institute can shape commercial development and medical practice in a developing country through the appropriation of the dialectical tensions and contradictions between traditional knowledge and practice, formal science, and commerce. Highlighting the dynamics of a complex inter-institutional cooperation and the role which indigenous knowledge comes to play in a national system of innovation, we identified knowledge production and protection, wealth creation and normative control as quintessential outcomes driving the revival, transformation and boom of plant medicine in Ghana. In highly differentiated contexts, where history, resources and environment supports public policy, our study suggest, inter-institutional cooperation serves as a quintessential mechanism to achieving far-reaching public policy objectives.