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"Urban Homestead" and "Urban Homesteading" now trademarked by The Dervaes Institute

This is so effed up. Please if you get a chance to check out my friend's blog post regarding the recent acquisition of the above phrases . The Crunchy Chicken I say, raise a commotion!

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Permalink Reply by Cornelia on February 16, 2011 at 9:31pm

There is now a Facebook page called "Take Back The Urban Homesteading(s)"

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Permalink Reply by lasharb on February 17, 2011 at 12:11am

Could it just be me or does this sound a lot like what Monsanto and so many other large corporations are doing? I'm so disappointed in this family - they were an inspiration. They're wrong. They're just plain wrong.

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Permalink Reply by ConsciouslyFrugal on February 17, 2011 at 1:41pm

I live out here in La-La Land and I have always found them to be over-the-top in their commercialization and need for recognition and fame. As a result, I've never found them to be inspirational or particularly impressive. But perhaps the rampant fame grubbing of SoCal has just made me bitter!

Sheryl Dutton-Ramos said:

I'm wondering is this is a publicity stunt by the Dervaes family to gain further recognition and capital. :/

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Permalink Reply by Lyndsay Officer on February 18, 2011 at 1:22pm

Wow, how mean minded and greedy. It's been a while since I looked at their website and it's changed a fair bit, with their family illustration it looks just like a computer game! And their tag line 'the ORIGINAL modern urban homestead' it's similar to a cookie baking kit, as if biscuits never existed before. Pah, not nice.

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Permalink Reply by ohsweetie on February 18, 2011 at 3:35pm

I agree, I think it's outrageous and crazy that the Dervaes Insitute thinks/was successful at completing trademarking on such common terms (or ones they didn't even originate).

but, that being said, LET THEM KEEP this out-dated and colonialist terminology!

I like this approach:

http://growandresist.com/2010/04/26/homestead-act-2-0/

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Permalink Reply by ohsweetie on February 18, 2011 at 4:03pm

and this http://growandresist.com/2011/02/16/urban-homestead-act-2-1/

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Permalink Reply by ConsciouslyFrugal on February 18, 2011 at 4:53pm

Ohsweetie--excellent points. You'd think as a halfbreed, I might have caught on to the implications of the term homestead. Oy! Thanks so much for the links. Great stuff.

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Permalink Reply by ohsweetie on February 18, 2011 at 5:01pm

@consciouslyfrugal

i think that the contemporary resistance movement around urban farming, environmental stewardship, and self-sustainability owes a lot to the "heritage" of knowledge around homesteading, etc, but with all of the education a number of us have, we have an ability to step outside of the colonialist history of our documents and actions. very exciting times.

i'm rest assured the the Dervaes are firmly rooted in this colonialist past, especially as is evident in even their application for trademark status. so much for community-based grassroots activism people!

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Permalink Reply by Lucy Goodman on February 22, 2011 at 6:03am

here is a pdf of a letter drafted by a lawyer who is telling the Devreas to stop doing this

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eff.org%2Ffiles%2F...

the Dervaes have no legal footing it seems

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Permalink Reply by Aliza Ess on February 22, 2011 at 8:11pm

I am taking a break from blogging right now due to a heavy workload at my day job and planning a super-large garden this year... just heard about all of this hubbub! Whoa.

I love the internet and sharing all this great stuff, but sometimes things can get out of hand when a culture really gets going!