COMMUNITIES OF OWNERSHIP & INTEREST

 Definition: Community of Ownership & Interest

DEFINITION:

• Community of Ownership and Interest: (compound noun/proposition) an all-inclusive collective/community of people, individuals and groups, who in any way have multi layered relationships with a place or 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: Used in opposition to ‘stakeholder’:  one who has a legitimate interest, stake and/or pecuniary interest in an enterprise, endeavour or entity. Also used to demonstrate inclusivity as opposed to the exclusive implications attached to ’stakeholder’.

THE CONCEPT

Communities of people have many items in which they share a sense 

of ownership - for example roads, schools, a health service, 

even a landscape. Those with such an interest form the Community

of Ownership and Interest – its COI – for those items. .

All too often a COI's shared ownerships and interests are down 

played and may even be belittled or denied –particularly when 

contentious or complex issues are involved. However, recognising 

the layerings of ownerships and interests, and the social cum cultural 

dynamics involved, can offer a way forward in dispute resolution 

plus better, and more inclusive, understandings of 'place'. 

If we listed items that had a COI we would include items and 

locations that were owned by the public – public places and 

spaces – such as:

• A park ... A river ... A monument; ...A memorial;  
• A hospital; ... An institution;  ... A heritage building;  
• A museum ... A school; ...  A water supply ... A forest 
• A festival ... A ritual; ...A community service; 
• A cultural landscape; ...A food source; ... A placemarker; 

    et al clearly the list is as endless as the kinds of 

    attachments people have for places, things and events.

And then there is the issue of 'cultural property' and 'cultural knowledge' where there are subliminal layers of 'cognitive ownerships' that increasingly come into play with the changing 

ways Indigenous cultural material – Australian & other – is 

currently being understood. 

Indeed, individuals within a place’s/event's/space's/knowledge 

system's COI will almost certainly have multiple layers of ownership 

and interest 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 to do with cognition – musing; the 

contemplative; the meditative. 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 the 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 the COI may also be referred to as a “stakeholder” 

but 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.

LINK ...  https://auditingplacedness.blogspot.com/