Strangers in the city: Spacing and social boundaries among accountants in the global city

Abstract

By conducting in‐depth interviews with 40 migrant and local accountants living and working in Dubai, the paper demonstrates how individual accountants draw on the global city as they make sense of and reconstruct professional identities and social boundaries of inclusion/exclusion. The analysis builds on Zygmunt Bauman's three social spacing processes: cognitive, aesthetic, and moral. The findings from lived experiences show that through cognitive spacing, the construction of other nationality groups of accountants as “strangers” is essential to the construction of participants' professional identities. Boundaries between groups of accountants are constructed in professional spaces (e.g., offices, teams, departments, sectors, firms, senior positions) through stereotype‐based identity work, stigmatizing accountants from different nationalities, as well as constructing cultures and qualifications as suitable or unsuitable for these spaces. In aesthetic spacing, boundaries and identities are constructed around the extent of freedom to be mobile, travel, and live pleasurably. This gives rise to the “tourist” and “vagabond” categories of accountants, constructing boundaries around who should be included/excluded in senior positions, based on the transitional power of their passports. In moral spacing, some accountants reflect and use their agency to transcend and resist boundaries constructed in cognitive and aesthetic spaces. They enact a moral self, where relationships with “stranger” accountants are based on moral responsibility and care for the Other. Attention to spacing processes in the global city demonstrates how individual accountants are active agents in reconstructing inclusion/exclusion boundaries and divisions in the profession. The findings indicate that if we are to foster a more open and inclusive profession, there is a need to consider spatial/spacing dimensions in both the city and the profession.

The (Lack of) Progress in Accountancy Professionalisation: Insights from Non‐accountants in Portugal

“…This division between groups of accountants seems to persist in contemporary times. Kamla (2023), in a study based on local and migrant accountants in Dubai, identifies stigma and boundaries in the contemporary accounting profession, and Wang and Chen (2024), in a study of Chinese society, also find stratification in the social perception of Western and local accountants since the late 1970s.…”

“…Further, it provides the perspectives of non-accountants, whose views are relevant to understanding lay society's generalised beliefs that have the potential to shape the social images of modern accountants and influence their social mobility. This is an underexplored group, with the contributions through people's inquiries being concentrated on students and accountants (e.g., Parker and Warren 2017;Caglio et al 2019;Kamla 2023;Wang and Chen 2024). This research, based on data collected in Portugal at a time when accounting and accountants faced reputational challenges from several financial scandals (Carnegie and Napier 2013), provides a particular setting where the profession is the biggest in the country and well established but much younger than in the Anglo-American realities.…”