Accounting for the “uncounted” workers: a dialectical view of accounting through Rancière

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines how accounting either contributes to or undermines worker resistance to unfair pay, thereby enhancing our current understanding of the emancipatory potential of accounting.

Design/methodology/approach

We apply Jacques Rancière's concept of politics and build on recent calls to introduce Rancière's work to accounting by analysing a case based on workers in an Australian supermarket chain who challenged their employer Coles over wage underpayments.

Findings

We find that in this case, accounting is, in part, a means to politics and a part of the police in Rancière's sense. More specifically, accounting operated within the established order to constrain the workers, but also provided workers with a resource for their political acts that enabled change.

Originality/value

This empirical research adds to Li and McKernan (2016) and Brown and Tregidga (2017) conceptual work on Rancière. It also contributes more broadly to emancipatory accounting research by identifying radical possibilities for workers' accounting to bring about change.

Citation

Yang, D., Dumay, J. and Tweedie, D. (2020), "Accounting for the “uncounted” workers: a dialectical view of accounting through Rancière", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 33 No. 7, pp. 1627-1655. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-06-2020-4608