Bookkeeping, accounting, calculative practice: the sociological suspense of calculation

Abstract

Abstract While accounting has recently been very interested in sociology, sociology has, since Weber, largely neglected accounting. This paper reviews the sociology of accounting and calculative practice that has been established outside academic sociology by accounting scholars. Subsequently touring the historical settings of accounting practice, the Foucauldian perspective within the accounting discourse, and a shortlist of issues for further sociological research, it gradually broadens the perspective from bookkeeping to accounting, to calculative practice in general. The problem of economic governance is found to be central in translating questions of calculative practice into questions of social order. Calculative practices contribute to the maintenance of social order while associating the financial with the non-financial, the real with the hyperreal, the conventional with the creative, indicating considerable tensions inherent in the social fabric of calculating cultures, and upholding a suspense of calculation inspiring further sociological investigation.