The Personal is Economical
My personal balance sheet for the London Festival of Europe.
A List of Questions
1. TRANSPARENCY AND TRACEABILITY
Would it be useful to keep accurate traces of how decisions about resources have been made? Is it actually possible? Are minute of meetings really transparent? If we try to reconstruct the process afterwards, are we not just ‘narrativising’, or writing a history, therefore necessarily modifying it?
2. ISSUES OF POWER AND HIERARCHY
Is it common for an open organisation to have one or two members who have access to sources of money? In our case is in connection with Chelsea College of Art; elsewhere it might be the person who put her name on a funding application, etc.
3. TRUST/TRANSPARENCY
Do we need to know everything in order to trust? Is transparency more of an aspiration than an applicable practice? When talking about resources, is transparency even possible beyond a ‘money-based’ budget?
In order to give my peers within the open organisation even a vague idea of how I operate within it, I would have to be transparent about how my belonging to THIS economical environment hinges on my own personal economy, which also hinges onto a number of other economical environments.
A SUGGESTION MORE THAN A CONCLUSION:
With Bruno Latour, I would like to suggest that we approach the issue of resources as a
CONTROVERSY: What is the nature of a Resource?
It might be useful to keep considering the question: instead of hurrying to answer it, let’s feed off it. True, this is dangerous. Particularly because this way the personal dimension ends up having a lot of weight.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE BUDGET GUIDELINES FOR OPEN ORGANISATIONS:
Consider each case in its own right. Beware of precedents – they are deceptive.
What is the Nature of a Resource?'
A list of possible resources (in no particular order)
Time
Infrastructures
Skills
Money
Ideas
Energy
Motivation
Knowledge
Affection
Humour
Experience
Influence
Power
Visibility
Confidence
Contacts
Tools
Specificity/Individuality
Body/Physical Presence
Appreciation
...
Note: Other 'things' can be framed as resources - perhaps when they are needed. Does something become a resource only when it brings results?
Return to ResourceCamp or Disclosures
