Tatiana Gabriela Padrón Palacios
Thesis Title: Crafting Resistance: Intellectual Property, Gendered Labour, and Global Inequalities in the Paja Toquilla Hat Industry
This project examines how intellectual property (IP) systems intersect with gendered labour and global inequalities in Ecuador’s paja toquilla hat industry. Despite UNESCO’s recognition of the craft as Intangible Cultural Heritage, current IP frameworks fail to protect the Indigenous female artisans (toquilleras) whose ancestral knowledge and labour sustain the craft. Instead, the current system disproportionately benefits exporters and retailers, reinforcing colonial and gendered hierarchies.
Grounded in feminist political economy and anticolonial theory, the research explores how IP regimes fail to give proper value to reproductive and artisanal labour. Using qualitative socio-legal methods—policy analysis, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation in weaving communities—it documents the marginalisation of rural Indigenous women and their strategies of resistance. A central focus is the “value gap” between the minimal compensation received by toquilleras and the high profits captured globally from their cultural labour.
The study develops a feminist and empirically informed framework to expose how dominant IP systems exploit racialised women’s work within global value chains. Centred on the lived experience of toquilleras, it challenges the understudied colonial assumptions in IP law and advocates for more equitable, community-based forms of recognition. Expected outcomes include academic publications and policy recommendations that promote social and gender justice in IP frameworks. The project seeks to improve the economic conditions of toquilleras by recognising them as cultural co-owners, strengthening collective rights, and contributing to global debates on the colonial nature of IP governance.
Biography:
Tatiana Padrón is a lawyer and socio-legal researcher from Ecuador, currently pursuing a PhD in Law at the University of Birmingham funded by the ESRC Midlands Graduate School DTP. Her research focuses on the intersections of intellectual property, gendered labour, and global inequalities, particularly within the paja toquilla hat industry. She holds a Master’s degree in Gender, Development, Sexual and Reproductive Health from the University of Cuenca and an LLB (with bar qualification) from the Universidad del Azuay, where she graduated with first-class honours and received the Honorato Vázquez Award for Best Graduate of the School of Law. Before starting her PhD, Tatiana worked as a Specialist in Intellectual Property at the Ecuadorian Institute of Intellectual Property (IEPI) and later as a lecturer and research associate at the Universidad del Azuay. She has collaborated on sociolegal research projects with the University of Birmingham and served as an expert witness for asylum cases in the United States, focusing on gender-based violence and state persecution in Ecuador. Tatiana’s academic interests include feminist political economy, decolonial theory, and the socio-legal dimensions of craft work and global production networks. She is fluent in Spanish, English, and French, and is committed to advancing gender and social justice through research, teaching, and public engagement.
Publications:
“Reproducción social, género y academia durante la pandemia de Covid-19: Experiencias desde Ecuador” [Social Reproduction, Gender, and Academia During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experiences from Ecuador] (April 2023). Revista Sociedad y Economía. ISSN: 2389-9050. https://sociedadyeconomia.univalle.edu.co/index.php/sociedad_y_economia/artic le/view/11972
“Impacto de la pandemia de Covid-19 en las vidas y derechos de académicas y científicas ecuatorianas” [Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Lives and Rights of Ecuadorian Female Academics and Scientists] (2020). Universidad del Azuay. ISBN: 978-9942-847-51-5. https://publicaciones.uazuay.edu.ec/index.php/ceuazuay/catalog/book/225
“Women’s Experiences of Using Specialised Courts for Violence Against Women: Lessons from Ecuador” (2020). University of Birmingham. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2020/womens-experiences-ofusing-specialised-courts-for-violence-against-women-lessons-from-ecuador
“La Víctima del Delito en el Sistema Penal” [The Victim of Crime in the Criminal Justice System] (2013). Universidad del Azuay. ISBN: 978-9978-325-28-5. https://biblioteca.uazuay.edu.ec/buscar/item/74030
Other research interests:
Feminist political economy; postcolonial theory; intellectual property.
Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham
2025 Cohort
Email:
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Supervisory Team:
Dr Chen Zhu
Dr Silvana Tapia Tapia
Professor Kate Bedford