Paper short abstract:

Through ethnography based in New Delhi this paper considers how the materials, images and information through which a transparency and accountability mechanism is enacted are affected by time and environment. It asks what it means to make public information durable, or vulnerable to decay?

Paper long abstract:

The emergence of audit mechanisms intended to assess and improve relationships between citizens and states has been well documented, but the role that material decay plays in these processes is less understood. How might the materials, images and information through which transparency and accountability are put into action withstand the effects of time and environment? How might this affect the ways in which people encounter and access information? How does a focus on materials and decay help us to understand bureaucratic resistance to, or compliance with, audit regimes? I explore these questions through an account of a surprise official inspection of the implementation of a transparency and accountability initiative relating to public works in New Delhi.

Since 2011 municipal representatives in New Delhi are compelled by law to publish details of amounts spent on public works. This requires that Hindi language noticeboards detailing recent expenditure are displayed at municipal corporation depots across the city. These boards are the images of the law in the title. Due to local interpretations of the order the noticeboards vary wildly in style, medium and material which means that they, and the information that they contain, weather and decay in different ways. Even where signs are made durable the information upon them may go out of date, decaying in relevance if not in legibility. By exploring the materiality of these images of the law we see how transparency and accountability are imperfect processes. Materiality and temporality become key issues as public information decays back into opacity.