INSTITUTIONALISING COMMUNITY OWNERSHIPS

If we were to list items that had a Community of Ownership and Interest – a COI – we would include items and locations that were in, and perceived to be in public ownership – public places and spaces – places such as parks; or rivers; or monuments and memorials; or museums quite clearly the list would be as endless as the kinds of social and cultural attachments people have for places, things and events. 

DEFINITION:

• Community of Ownership and Interest: (compound noun/proposition) an all-inclusive collective/community of people, individuals and groups, who in any way have layers of relationships with a place, a cultural landscape and/or the operation of an institution, organisation or establishment – typically a network.

• Usage and context: cultural geography; civic and environmental planning; and community administration
• REFERENCE: Dr Bill Boyd, SCU et al
• CONTEXT NOTE: Typically used in opposition to “stakeholder”:  one who has a legitimate interest, stake and/or pecuniary interest in an enterprise, endeavour or entity, to demonstrate inclusivity as opposed to the exclusive implications attached to ’stakeholder’. 

And then there is the issue of 'cultural property' and 'cultural knowledge' where there are subliminal layers of ownerships – 'cognitive ownerships' – that increasingly come into play. For instance, with the changing ways Indigenous cultural material – Australian & other – is currently being understood in a postcolonial context cultural property is now openly contested albeit that the right to contest such an 'etherial' ownership is also serially contested.

Indeed, individuals within a place’s/event's/space's/knowledge system's COI  will almost certainly have multiple layers of ownership and interest invested in it. The ‘truth’ in the ownership and interest here is ‘cognitive,’ a matter of ‘lore’ rather than ‘law’ – that which is taught; hence to do with wisdom; concerning cultural knowledge, traditions and beliefs. It pertains to cognition, the process of knowing, being aware, the acts of thinking, learning and judging. If we take a museum as an exemplar, museums are almost entirely to do with cognition – musing; the contemplative; the meditative. 

Alternatively, if we look at courts, then they are to do with power over conduct; enforcement and authority; control and regulation, guilt and innocence – none of which have a place in musing places, nor much to do with musing.

Furthermore, members of a COI should be understood as having both rites and obligations commensurate with their claimed ownership, expressed interest and their relationship to the institution and its overall enterprise.

A member of a COI may also be referred to as a “stakeholder”. However, stakeholdership in its current usage has generally come to mean a person, group, business or organisation that has some kind vested or pecuniary interest in something or a place.

Typically, 'stakeholders' assert their rights when there is a contentious decision to be made. However, 'stakeholders' are rarely called upon to meet or acknowledge an obligation. Conversely, members of a COI will have innate understandings of the obligations that are expected of them and the rights they expect to enjoy – indeed, there are likely to be stakeholders in the COI mix.

It is just the case that for an institution say, the COI mix, when assessed from outside, is intentionally, functionally and socially more inclusive.That is more inclusive than say a list of stakeholders drawn up in respect to a development project that governments – Local, State & Federal –typically make decisions about.

Stakeholder groups and Communities of Ownership and Interest are concepts with kindred sensibilities – law and lore, the former reinforcing the latter. Nonetheless, they engage with different community sensibilities; with different expectations and different relationships – even if sometimes many of the same people have a ‘stake’ in something as well as other relationships as a member of a COI.

Identifying cognitive ownerships is not necessarily anything that needs to be done from outside. Ideally it is something that should be done from the inside and in an inclusive  participatory way. Generally it isn’t anything that is best done by some outside consultant.

However where there is some change management to be done there might be some benefit in some form of independent facilitation – but not by necessity nor always.

One of the important things to acknowledge is that an individual may well have several layers of ownership and interest. For instance, if we move outside the museum paradigm and say look at a public park for example, an individual might identify with it in multi-layered ways:

• They may eat lunch there from time to time;

• Choose to meet people there;

• Kick a ball around there and even walk their dog there;

• Gather there to protest or celebrate something there;

• Practise playing a musical instrument there;

• Photograph plants there or use it as a backdrop for wedding photographs … whatever.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Ask this person to separate and rank any of these things and then tell them that one thing has to be more important than another. How could anyone have the same ready answer on two different days? It turns out that almost always most people are unable, or reluctant  or are unwilling, to rank one of their cognitive ownerships, or interests, above all others.

The ownerships are multi-layered rather than singular and one layer need not, indeed aught not, be ranked over or be subsumed by another. Certainly there will be coexistent confluences of ownerships and conflicts of interest that need to be navigated along with the rights and obligations attached to each that need to be met.

If a museum is a ‘centre of ownerships’ what it mostly needs to do is celebrate the diversity and divergence of interests – the diversity of ownerships. Attempting to blend these ownerships in the hope of finding some common denominator is an unprofitable exercise –homogenising ownerships is more to do with blanding than blending.

So when it comes to collecting and telling stories and in ways that are understandable to an identified CIO, a CIO audit is a useful thing to have in the toolbox. This tool might already be there in some form or other but for some reason it may be covered with layers of bureaucratic dust and rust.

The simplest thing to do in regard to celebrating an institution's COI is to invite people, organisations, like institutions and scholars to register their interest freely and then engage with them in some way.  Better still allow them to do something they may have otherwise been reticent to do. As a marketing strategy celebrating an institution's COI offers a myriad of win wins.