Kritisktperspektiv på redovisning

Assuming you have read the book in linear order, you should by now have a good grasp of some of the complexities related to research in accounting. The title of this chapter is perhaps straightforward but the topic includes a spectrum of different ways of approaching research in accounting. This chapter can only brief in defining and describing what Critical Perspectives on Accounting ‘is’, in two ways. First it is worth keeping in mind that it is only one definition among many (Puxty 1998; Chua 1986, Norman and Quattrone, 2010). Second, there are other approaches which are used and cannot be covered here (for instance sociological and institutional theory ones). Still, in defining the topic in writing, I will suggest how research about accounting can be done differently and hopefully understood differently. Finally, reading this chapter comes with a warning. I will try to challenge what you know about accounting, from its definition up. Definitionally, I treat accounting as a powerful practice which constantly and simultaneously ‘names and counts’, and through its naming and counting presents or constructs things to see and to know about our-selves and the world and offers pathways to act upon both (or not).
The chapter is structured as follows: first there is a brief discussion of the three main words in the title: ‘Critical’, ‘Perspectives’ and ‘Accounting’. In this way a complementary background (see chapter 1 and 2 in this volume) is provided for understanding the critical research field as such, and its dilemmas and possibilities. Against this background the chapter will then continue by providing thee short presentations of the three CPA approaches selected: Marxism, Phenomenology (particularly as developed by Merleau-Ponty), and Foucault’s ‘practice’ approach. These three approaches are chosen because they share common features and hence useful to discuss key similarities but also differences on how the human is taken into account in CPA research. They also represent common approaches used as CPA.