Accounting theory, ethnography, and the silence of the social
Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management
ISSN: 1176-6093
Article publication date: 17 March 2023
Issue publication date: 13 May 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer a reflection on the alliance between accounting theory and social research in general, focussing on the conjunction of accounting theory and ethnography in particular.
Design/methodology/approach
The author builds on Stefan Hirschauer’s methodological reflections on ethnography and the “silence of the social” to briefly re-articulate some of the ideas the author had associated, in an earlier piece, with the investigation of tacit coordination in accounting.
Findings
Ethnography is an intrinsically theoretical practice and also a particular form of accounting. As such, it presents a paradigm case for how accounting theory builds on, and emerges from, social research in joint efforts of breaking the silence of the social. Ethnographic research, like the practice of accounting and social research more generally, is associated with a stewardship of silence and an “ethics of mattering” (Karen Barad), and accounting theory is an invitation to reflect on the underlying practices of (dis-)articulation.
Originality/value
The paper invites readers to engage with accounting practice as a topic of systematic theoretical interest in exploring how we put the world on the record, understand the choices we make in the process and the silences we let lie.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Thomas Ahrens and Lukas Goretzki for their kind invitation to discuss tacit coordination and the broader case for accounting theory in this QRAM symposium as well as all the discussants, Christian Huber and Tommaso Palermo, as well as Christina Boedker and Jan Mouritsen. The author is also grateful to an anonymous reviewer of this journal who offered helpful comments on an earlier draft of this piece.
Citation
Vollmer, H. (2024), "Accounting theory, ethnography, and the silence of the social", Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 255-260. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRAM-09-2022-0145
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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