The preservation of indigenous accounting systems in a subaltern community

Abstract

Purpose -The paper examines how indigenous accounting practices are mobilised in the daily life of a subaltern community, and how and why the members of that community have managed to preserve such practices over time despite external pressures for change.Methodology/approach -An ethno-methodological field study is employed to produce a text informing the ways in which people engage in social accounting practices. It uses the concepts of 'structuration theory' to understand how indigenous accounting systems are shaped by the interplay between the actions of agents and social structures. Findings -The case study suggests that it is not literacy, social capital and trust, institutional support, or emotional imperatives that tend to 'preserve' and 'sustain' indigenous accounting systems, but the strongly prevailing patronage based political system, as mobilised into the subaltern social structure, which makes individuals unable to change. Social accounting is seen as the common language of the inhabitants in their everyday life, as sanctioned by the unique form of autonomydependency relationship shaped by patronage politics.Originality -This is the first empirical study that focuses on how and why local 'subaltern' communities preserve their indigenous accounting practices over time.This contrasts with previous work that has focussed on the presence or absence of accounting in 'beyond work organisations'.Research implications -The findings implicate that any form of rational transformations in indigenous accounting systems in local subaltern communities first 3 requires a deconstruction analysis of any prevailing and dominant patronage political system.

Public sector management accounting in emerging economies: A literature review

“…We would also advise them to play a more supportive role in stimulating development by making room for di-38 versity based on differences in historical and political contexts. Localized and indigenous accounting technologies should perhaps be encouraged rather than discarded (see Jayasinghe & Thomas, 2009;Jayasinghe & Wickramasinghe, 2011). They may, in fact, be preferred to a bombardment of Westerncentric accounting tools (see also Abdul-Rahaman et al, 1997;Allen, 2009, pp.16-24;De Renzio, 2006).…”

25 Years of Giddens in accounting research: Achievements, limitations and the future

“…the extent to which individual papers explicitly build on and synthesize the previous literature, we see that very few papers (13%) cite 10 or more previous works (e.g. Englund & Gerdin, 2008;Jack & Kholeif, 2008;Jayasinghe & Thomas, 2009). The table also shows that more than half of the papers published from 2001 and onwards cite five or less previous works.…”

“…A dominating part of this literature has shown that subordinates may side-step various 'management-initiated' attempts for MA change, through access to resources such as technical/local knowledge , physical distance from superiors (Ouibrahim & Scapens, 1989), absence of clearly defined measurement systems , or complex command structures . However, the literature has also provided insights into how dominating groups may preserve a certain form of MA, through drawing upon their social positions and asset ownership (Jayasinghe & Thomas, 2009).…”

“…However, premised on Giddens' argument that different dimensions of social structures and systems can be usefully separated analytically, we shall continue to make a distinction between 'MA' and 'non-MA' structures and practices, where the latter category covers a wide array of phenomena ranging from intra-organizational discourses Capps et al, 1989) to societal systems (Ouibrahim & Scapens, 1989;Jayasinghe & Thomas, 2009). The argument is that our grounded analysis of the MA literature suggests that individual studies have tended to focus on either of the following two areas; (1) the role of MA in shaping non-MA structures and social systems, or; (2) the role of non-MA structures in shaping MA structures and practices.…”

RISE 6(3) Full Issue

“…8 La raja es una expresión de calificación para referirse a algo extraordinario, algo muy bueno o muy divertido. 9 Bacán es en Chile la forma que se tiene para expresar algo muy bueno Education,6(3) 367 contables, asociados a la funcionalidad oral de las lenguas indígenas y a sistemas comerciales que incorporan relaciones de parentesco y de autoridades colegiadas a nivel de aldeas (Jayasinghe & Thomas, 2009) cuestiona cómo se están expandiendo formas empresariales ajenas al contexto de las comunidades a través de programas de gobierno, y sobre cómo las intervenciones que realicemos se ven influidos por campos de fuerza mayores. El marco discursivo basado en la responsabilidad individual y el emprendurismo se reafirma cuando un líder local opina que "a los indígenas nos hace falta saber ser empresarios" (R., 28/11/2012).…”