The customs officer

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

ISSN: 0951-3574

Article publication date: 7 February 2014

275

Citation

McWatters, P.C. (2014), "The customs officer", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 27 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ.05927baa.002

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited


The customs officer

Article Type:

Literature and insights From:

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Volume 27, Issue 2

I stood at the counter, so meek and so mild,
while he held (out) my passport and quickly replied,

“An accounting researcher, how amusing and rare.
What could you possibly have to study, to declare?”

A plane connection to make and not wishing to tarry,
I reflected upon how best to respond, ever merry.

After suitable problematisation of my current state,
I engaged in rapid discourse with which to explicate.

Au contraire”, I replied a linguistic turn introduced,
social relations instantiated or perhaps reproduced.

“It is articulation, conceptualisation and yet even more”,
the construction of logics I next brought to the fore.

“It is alternative projects in a state of subversion”,
clearly seeing that he was in need of conversion.

From the false reality of his hegemonic ways,
yet my not wishing to be waiting for days.

The border was it formal control or just social norms,
feeling much like a minor actor who simply performs.

Sensing differential access to discursive resources,
I trotted out a lengthy series of credible sources.

Then wishing to avoid missing my flight,
I perfected a response both convincing and tight.

It is the analysis of double-bookkeeping entries,
although others might say ontological fancies.

Green eyeshades we wear, and counting we do,
Sensing his evocative smile, my flight overdue.

I ended my post-structuralist and soothing discourse,
to be off with haste to the departure concourse.

Prof Cheryl McWatters
Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

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