Gemma John (Anthropology, Edinburgh)
Reading the life in documents: Freedom of Information Legislation in Scotland and Decisions over Public and Private
Providing citizens with access to information held by Scottish public authorities and various levels of government, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) is designed to make ‘secretive’ public bodies more ‘transparent’. Whilst requesters of information carefully read the relations between public servants that are evident in the information they disclose, disclosers of information are careful to conceal traces of their ‘person’ and personal relations by acting on a common basis—with the intention of having no personal impact on decision-making. Public servants deciding whether information is ‘public’ and accessible or ‘private’ and should be withheld, must decide whether the subjects of information are differentiated and, appear as ‘persons’, or else share a job or organisation in common, and act in the capacity of the ‘person’ of the organisation.
This paper argues what is under contestation, read, and made visible or concealed by people as they submit and respond to requests for information are people’s shared or divided interests. A decision over whether an entity is a ‘person’ or a ‘thing’, ‘public’ or ‘private’ is entirely a decision over an entity’s relations. It is as if ‘the relation’ has attained and replaced the stability of previously fixed certainties. The relationality of an entity’s form leaves decision-makers uncertain as to its status, and as contexts change, information can appear out of place. This paper explores the relational lives of ?persons, and of documents, and scrutinizes the way in which public servants and users of FOISA carefully read the life in and accordingly manage the life of? documents as they circulate.
Gemma John is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh University. She completed her Social Anthropology PhD on Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation in Scotland at St Andrews University in 2009. She is currently preparing articles on her doctoral research that will form the basis of a monograph on FOI in Scotland, and associated issues of ‘transparency’, ‘secrecy’, ‘culture change’ and the contested relationship between ‘public’ and ‘private’.
This paper argues what is under contestation, read, and made visible or concealed by people as they submit and respond to requests for information are people’s shared or divided interests. A decision over whether an entity is a ‘person’ or a ‘thing’, ‘public’ or ‘private’ is entirely a decision over an entity’s relations. It is as if ‘the relation’ has attained and replaced the stability of previously fixed certainties. The relationality of an entity’s form leaves decision-makers uncertain as to its status, and as contexts change, information can appear out of place. This paper explores the relational lives of ?persons, and of documents, and scrutinizes the way in which public servants and users of FOISA carefully read the life in and accordingly manage the life of? documents as they circulate.
Gemma John is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh University. She completed her Social Anthropology PhD on Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation in Scotland at St Andrews University in 2009. She is currently preparing articles on her doctoral research that will form the basis of a monograph on FOI in Scotland, and associated issues of ‘transparency’, ‘secrecy’, ‘culture change’ and the contested relationship between ‘public’ and ‘private’.
