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Accounting assemblages, desire, and the body without organs

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  • Dean Neu
  • Jeff Everett
  • Abu Shiraz Rahaman

Abstract

Purpose - This paper uses the ideas and concepts of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and aims to to examine how accounting works in the context of international development. Design/methodology/approach - A case study approach within El Salvador is used. Data sources include archival documents, 35 semi‐structured interviews with field participants, and participant observations. The focus is on the activities of the Inter‐American Development Bank (IDB) and the United Nations Development Agency (UNDP) in the country of El Salvador, showing how complex assemblages of people, technologies such as accounting, and discourses such as accountability come to claim or “territorialize” particular physical and discursive spaces. Findings - The analysis highlights how accounting and its associated actors further the development aspirations of loan beneficiaries; yet at the same time contribute to the “over‐organization” of these actors' social space. Originality/value - The paper illustrates that the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari – assemblage, desire, Bodies without Organs, and lines of flight to name a few – open up for consideration and analysis a series of field‐specific processes that have previously been largely un‐explored within the accounting literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Dean Neu & Jeff Everett & Abu Shiraz Rahaman, 2009. "Accounting assemblages, desire, and the body without organs," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(3), pages 319-350, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:aaajpp:v:22:y:2009:i:3:p:319-350
    DOI: 10.1108/09513570910945642
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    1. Pizzini, Mina J., 2006. "The relation between cost-system design, managers' evaluations of the relevance and usefulness of cost data, and financial performance: an empirical study of US hospitals," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 179-210, February.
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    6. Aziza Laguecir & Bernard Leca, 2018. "Strategies of visibility in contemporary surveillance settings: Insights from misconduct concealment in financial markets, Critical Perspectives on Accounting," Post-Print hal-01914996, HAL.
    7. Duval, Anne-Marie & Gendron, Yves & Roux-Dufort, Christophe, 2015. "Exhibiting nongovernmental organizations: Reifying the performance discourse through framing power," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 31-53.
    8. Martinez, Daniel E., 2011. "Beyond disciplinary enclosures: Management control in the society of control," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 200-211.
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    10. Abu Shiraz Rahaman, 2009. "Independent financial auditing and the crusade against government sector financial mismanagement in Ghana," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(4), pages 224-246, October.
    11. Martinez, Daniel E. & Pflueger, Dane & Palermo, Tommaso, 2022. "Accounting and the territorialization of markets: A field study of the Colorado cannabis market," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
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    13. Vassili Joannides & Nicolas Berland & D. T. Wickramasinghe, 2010. "Post-Hofstede diversity/cultural studies: what contributions to accounting knowledge?," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-00676570, HAL.
    14. Kraus, Kalle & Kennergren, Cecilia & von Unge, Amelie, 2017. "The interplay between ideological control and formal management control systems – A case study of a non-governmental organisation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 42-59.
    15. Vassili Joannides & Nicolas Berland & Danture Wickramasinghe, 2010. "Post-Hofstede diversity/cultural studies: what contributions to accounting knowledge?," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-01661685, HAL.
    16. Changwony, Frederick Kibon & Paterson, Audrey S., 2019. "Accounting practice, fiscal decentralization and corruption," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
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    18. Mehrpouya, Afshin & Salles-Djelic, Marie-Laure, 2019. "Seeing like the market; exploring the mutual rise of transparency and accounting in transnational economic and market governance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 12-31.
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    Keywords

    Accounting; El Salvador; Banks; Loans;
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