Land, bodies, and knowledge: biocolonialism of plants, indigenous peoples, women, and people with disabilities

In the same way that it can be argued that the bodies of the poor, people of color, and women have been colonized in the preceding centuries along with the colonization of land, so too it can be argued with bioprospecting. The difference is that this latest permutation of colonization is occurring in a knowledge-based economy. Privatization is achieved through patents, the exploitation of body parts such as women's eggs or the cell lines of isolated populations, and the appropriation of knowledge that has been handed down over generations, very frequently among women