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Freedom of information and transparency in Scotland: Disclosing persons as things and vice versa (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate )
Author(s) -
John Gemma
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2011.00809.x
Subject(s) - transparency (behavior) , freedom of information , legislation , democracy , corporate governance , sociology , political science , freedom of the press , law , revelation , internet privacy , law and economics , public relations , business , computer science , politics , art , literature , finance
Contemporary ideals of democratic governance hold that public trust in the workings of public authorities is achieved through measures such as allowing free access to information. Yet 18 months participating in and observing the activities of users of Freedom of Information legislation – introduced in Scotland in 2005 – and civil servants disclosing information under it reveals that public trust and transparency do not always flow from increased access. Treating ‘transparency’, not as a known phenomenon, but as something that emerges in ethnographic observation and analysis, this article moves beyond an idea of transparency as being the simple revelation of an object by a subject, and in doing so challenges the fixed distinction between persons and things on which transparency as it is understood by Freedom of Information legislation appears to rely.