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The purpose of this chapter is to examine the budgeting process in a local church from a social capital perspective. The social capital provides novel insights into the construction of budgets and its social aspects. A qualitative case study was adopted, with an interpretive methodology. Semi-structured interviews were used to interview 14 managers involved in the budgeting process at a local independent church. The interview data were supplemented by documentary evidence. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) framework of social capital was used to analyse the data. The main finding was that budgeting was found to be a social process – that can best be explained by social capital theory. There may be an element of self-selection, as the church agreed to participate in the study and chose to allow a researcher to examine social aspects of its budgeting process. The chapter contributes to both social capital theory and church literature. Social capital provides novel insights into the construction of budgets and its social aspects. In addition, contemporary budgeting practices are studied in a church in a denomination and country not previously studied.

Today, as we hurtle towards imminent planetary destruction in the age of the Anthropocene, we believe it may be instructive to try and understand if the ancient science of spirituality can prove useful in humankind's ability to change course, even at this late hour. We argue that such a paradigm shift is critically essential for human survival and that without the inner transformation proposed by this science, it may prove impossible to build a society based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. This chapter draws from foundational texts and authoritative sources across multiple religious traditions, based upon which it outlines a brief sketch of the ancient science of spirituality. We begin with an account of the differentia specifica of this science, where we delve into what kind of science this is. Since it is centrally concerned with inner transformation, we briefly outline the theory of change embedded in this science and the kind of rejuvenation it enables, which makes it possible for us to clearly perceive the key elements and the structure of reality. We then spell out the impact this has on the nature of human action, continually teasing out implications for policy and practice in our time. We provide a few concrete illustrations of the same. Inter alia, we also show how many of these insights can be found even within modern scientific and philosophical traditions, thereby indicating possibilities of convergence and synthesis between ancient and modern science, following thereby the guidance of genuine spirituality.

This chapter explores the question – where is the economy? In taking up this question, I explore the action of economists in making the economy, framed in the place of ‘place’ in the economy and how the politics of economic data and calculation and boundaries make economies. In this way, I argue for a performative understanding of regional economics where the economy can be said to be made, often out of real things such as hospitals, factories, shops and schools, and infrastructure, but also out of social practices that echo out of the field of economics into institutions and ways of thinking calculatedly.

To make this case of this approach, and to grasp the slippery fish of where the economy is, I introduce autoethnographic materials from my experience of being a regional economic commentator, holding forth on the Waterford economy. These empirics relay the everyday methods of economic analysis as a material and political practice, alighting on the data, calculations and boundaries that go into making the economy. Here the curious relationship between the economist and their economy, the dancer and the dance come into view and how people, including myself, call an economy into being.