Accounting and the history of the everyday life of captains, sailors and common seamen in eighteenth-century Portuguese slave trading
- Authors: Pinto, Ofelia , West, Brian
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 22, no. 3 (2017), p. 320-347
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- Description: This archive-based case study uses accounting and related records to uncover details of the everyday life of the captains, sailors and seamen who manned the ships that allowed Portuguese slave trading to flourish during the eighteenth century. By elaborating the lives of the crews of the ships of the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão, a Portuguese chartered company created in 1755 for the express purpose of slave trading, the study contributes to a growing body of literature that uses accounting documents as a source of social history and enables previously silent voices to be heard. Furthermore, the study brings together two notions which have previously remained separated in the accounting history literature: the everyday lives of participants within the setting of a ‘dark’ episode of human history. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.
Accounting, slavery and social history : The legacy of an eighteenth-century Portuguese chartered company
- Authors: Pinto, Ofelia , West, Brian
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 22, no. 2 (2017), p. 141-166
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- Description: Based on extensive archival research, this study documents and analyses the accounting techniques that the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão applied to its slave trading operations during the second half of the eighteenth century. The surviving accounting records of this Portuguese chartered company reveal – in meticulous detail – the integral role that accounting technology played in enabling the slave trade to flourish. However, and paradoxically, while evidencing this culpability the same accounting records also document the essential humanity of the slaves and preserve details of the bleak circumstances of their existence. Slaves are typically lamented as a lost people consigned to a tragic and an eternal anonymity, but it is from accounting records that many aspects of their lives can be reconstructed. In this way, the accounting records studied are also shown to provide a latent source of social history that constitutes a profound mea culpa. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.
Stadiums and scheduling : Measuring deadweight losses in the Victorian Football League, 1920–70
- Authors: Frost, Lionel , Borrowman, Luc , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. , no. (2017), p.
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- Description: Over a 50 year period, Australian Rules football's major league, the Victorian Football League, did not always use its largest and best-equipped stadium for regular season games between its most popular teams or schedule those teams to play twice in a regular season. We calculate deadweight losses from the use of capital goods (stadiums) and effects of match scheduling in this professional sports league. Such analysis has not been attempted previously because of the absence of a counterfactual. The welfare losses were significant but not sufficient to threaten the survival of a distance-protected cartel.
Action, an ‘encompassing ethic’ and academics in the midst of the climate crisis
- Authors: Plowright, Susan
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Educational Philosophy and Theory Vol. 48, no. 14 (2016), p. 1442-1451
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- Description: In the midst of a crisis like the climate crisis and calls for ‘all hands on deck’, what do academics, as a microcosm of humanity, see? In Hannah Arendt’s terms, an ‘abyss of freedom’ to act or a paralysing ‘abyss of nothingness’? Some from the academy themselves, including Tamboukou, Apple and Bourdieu, make judgements more akin to the latter and mount arguments to urge action. This paper joins their call and theorises ethical and demonstrably plausible resources as a potentially generative heuristic for political action by academics in the face of ‘dark times’. I develop these resources by initially drawing on Arendt’s ethical, but limited, action process. Then, through interpreting and expanding her unfinished theory of judging and echoing Karl Jaspers' concept The Encompassing, I propose the notion of an ‘encompassing ethic’. This ethic, synthesised with Arendt’s action process, ameliorates action’s limitations and suggests the idea of ‘encompassing action’. The paper concludes by bringing these conceptual resources to life through two inspiring historical examples of such action involving academics. © 2016 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia.
Legitimizing amateur status using financial reports: Victorian Football League clubs, 1909-1912
- Authors: Halabi, Abdel , Lightbody, Margaret , Frost, Lionel , Carter, Amanda
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 21, no. 1 (2016), p. 25-47
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- Description: It is generally accepted by historians that in the early twentieth century clubs in Australian Football's Victorian Football League (VFL) made payments to "amateur" players prior to the legalization of professionalism and that such payments were not disclosed in club financial reports. Previously, financial reports have not been used to support or refute such claims. This article presents findings from a detailed examination of the financial reports and other records of six of the 10 VFL clubs for the years surrounding the legalization of professional football in 1911 (1909-1912). Prior to 1911, most clubs engaged in fraudulent financial reporting practices by misrepresenting player payments as other forms of permitted expenditures, thus concealing prohibited remunerative payments to players within their financial reports. Using isomorphic influences to explain the reasons for this misrepresentation, we conclude that the financial reports were used to legitimate the majority of clubs as amateur organizations. Competing isomorphic pressures, particularly conflicting coercive factors related to the VFL's prohibition on player payments and normative pressures associated with increasing professionalism amongst players, contributed to clubs engaging in fraudulent financial reporting. © The Author(s) 2015.
One hundred years of annual reporting by the Australian Red Cross : Building public trust and approbation through emotive disclosures
- Authors: Langton, Jonathan , West, Brian
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 21, no. 2-3 (2016), p. 185-207
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- Description: Marking the centenary of the Australian Red Cross, this interpretive and historical case study spans the organization’s beginning in 1914 through to the present day. The overarching purpose is to reveal how one of Australia’s oldest and most important humanitarian organizations used accounting and related information in the discharge of accountability. More specifically, this longitudinal study examines the organization’s annual reporting practices over the course of a century, with particular focus on the emotive disclosures contained in the reports. A political economy of accounting theoretical framework guides the content analysis and the interpretation of the findings. The annual reports were found to be responsive to the changing institutional, social, economic and political environment and evidence the organization’s reliance upon emotive disclosures to discharge a broad scope accountability and build public trust and approbation. © The Author(s) 2016.
Accounting History Publication List 2014
- Authors: Foreman, Peter
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 20, no. 2 (2015), p. 236-240
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Injustice and outcomes : a comparative analysis of two major disputes
- Authors: Steel, Kathryn
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Labor History Vol. 56, no. 5 (2015), p. 670-693
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- Description: Injustice is said to be the cornerstone of collective action, but why is it so important, and how does the way in which it is framed for mobilisation affect the outcomes? This paper compares two lengthy disputes in the Australian electricity industry which demonstrate that a sense of injustice and a history of successful industrial action do not guarantee that a dispute will be resolved to employees' satisfaction when the wider context is unfavourable. Although leaders of both disputes expressed confidence in success predicated on the outcomes of previous industrial activity, there were specific factors within the industrial, economic and political context which provoked determined employer and government counter mobilisation leading to unsuccessful outcomes for the workers in dispute. The reasons for the poor outcomes are discussed within the context of the framing of the injustice by leaders and the effect of the response of a determined government.
John Maynard Keynes and the Keynes of the Commonwealth, Douglas Copland
- Authors: Millmow, Alex
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 55, no. 1 (2015), p. 1-19
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- Description: When Douglas Copland of the University of Melbourne was about to go abroad in 1933, a leading Australian businessman, Herbert Gepp, hailed him as the 'Keynes of the Commonwealth'. Gepp was referring to Copland's contributions to Australian economic policy, not that of the British Commonwealth, but there were similarities between Copland and John Maynard Keynes. In full flight, Copland impressed his compatriots with his prodigious work ethic, networking skills, persuasive powers with policy-makers, and practice of popularising economics in order to effect stabilisation policy. For a short time, there were two Keynes, one at the centre, the other at the periphery. © 2015 Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
The John Creedy economics collection: A donation of significance
- Authors: Clark, Roger
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: History of Economics Review Vol. 60, no. Summer (2015), p. 101-104
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- Description: A talk given by Roger Clark, Acquisitions Librarian Federation University Australia, on 10 April 2014 I can see the headline already “Librarian talks about donation of books”..... I hope this little talk won’t be quite as boring as that, but I guess the proof will be in the pudding. My name is Roger Clark, and I am the Acquisitions Librarian here at FedUni. "From introduction"
What it means to be studying against the grain of neoliberalism in a community-based university programme in a 'disadvantaged area'
- Authors: Smyth, John , Harrison, Tim
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Educational Administration and History Vol. 47, no. 2 (2015), p. 155-173
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- Description: Australia is indicative of a country that is deeply confused and conflicted around a policy discourse of inclusion that is sutured within an existential context heavily committed to the tenets of neoliberalism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of higher education, in which the proportion of young people from backgrounds of 'disadvantage' has remained implacably stuck at around 15% for several decades. The research from which this paper comes is an innovative community-based university-provided programme for young people for whom university education was never a realistic possibility - because of family histories, interruption to their lives, of having undertaken forms of secondary education that prevented them from gaining university entrance qualification, or who had terminated their education before completing the secondary years of schooling. This paper explores the story of one young person in his first year in a university programme, as he struggled with obstacles and impediments of a higher education system and set of neoliberal policy discourses that remain deeply sceptical and antagonistic to his trajectory. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
The life and thought of Robert Keith Yorston: An advocate for accounting reform
- Authors: Anderson, Ray , Gaffikin, Michael , Singh, Geeta
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 19, no. 4 (November 2014), p. 533-556
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- Description: Sir Robert Keith Yorston (1902-1983) was an Australian business educator and practitioner. He was a prolific author whose textbooks were adopted by the professional bodies, technical colleges and universities both in Australia and New Zealand. A large part of Yorston's career was devoted to the Australian Accountancy College. Yorston was at the forefront of the professional dialogue on the quality of financial reporting in Australia. He also advocated improvements in matters of corporate governance including gender equality and employee reporting. It is argued that many of Yorston's ideas were ahead of their time, and there is a need for an awareness of his contribution to accounting thought and practice. This article is an acknowledgement of Yorston's endeavours. It recognizes his contribution to accounting education, the profession and the wider community. In so doing, it traces an important chapter in the history of accounting education and practice in Australia.
Brotherly love and the making of a British economist
- Authors: Millmow, Alex
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: History of Economics Ideas Vol. XX1, no. 2 (2013), p. 29-46
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Commemoration of the Great War on the Somme: Exploring personal connections
- Authors: Winter, Caroline
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change Vol. 10, no. 3 (2013), p. 248-263
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- Description: This study was undertaken at two sites on the Somme, France, one of the main battlefields of the Great War (1914-1918). It used a quantitative method and sought to explore the relative strength of two bases of personal connection (family and nation) to interests in visiting the area. The impact of attendance at a commemorative event on visitors' battlefield interests was also explored. The sample at the Thiepval memorial was dominated by British visitors and by Australians at Villers-Bretonneux. The analysis indicated that people with close family connections to the war had higher levels of interest in seeing sites of their family's war-time involvement, desire to pay their respects and historical interest. Attendance at a major national event (Anzac Day) appeared to increase national interest in people who did not have family connections. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
- Description: 2003010417
Douglas Copland's battle with the younger Brethren of economists
- Authors: Millmow, Alex
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Economic History Review Vol. 53, no. 2 (2013), p. 187-209
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- Description: This article discusses the problematic relationship between Douglas Copland and the new generation of post-war Australian economists. Copland felt that their view of economic policy was contrary to Australia's best interests. The critique and feud was to last right up till Copland's retirement. The article shows how Copland's views differed from those of inside economists and therefore the official policy line. Australian Economic History Review © 2013 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand.
- Description: 2003011224
Triumphant, troubled, then terminal: an examination of the Cain and Kirner decade 30 years on
- Authors: Harkness, Alistair
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Labour History (Australia) Vol. 105, no. (2013), p. 27-46
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- Description: More than 30 years have elapsed since the election of the Cain Labor government in Victoria in April 1982 and, given that only limited academic literature exists on this period of governance in Australia's second most populous state, it is worth examining in detail the Cain and Kirner Labor governments. This article sets this period in the context of the longer political history of Victoria, provides analysis of Labor's rise from electoral inconsequence to government, and charts the course of Labor's decade in office until it ended unceremoniously in October 1992. The article argues that, in contrast to the Hawke and Keating federal governments, Labor in Victoria largely eschewed neoliberalism and pursued a more traditional social democratic agenda. This program proved fruitful until "the recession we had to have" severely impacted on the local economy in 1990-91 and led to the landslide defeat of 1992.
'Getting a job' : Vocationalism, identity formation, and critical ethnographic inquiry
- Authors: Down, Barry , Smyth, John
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Educational Administration and History Vol. 44, no. 3 (2012), p. 203-219
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP100100045
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- Description: This article examines the highly disputed policy nexus around what on the surface appears to be the helpful field of vocational education and training. Despite the promises of vocational education and training to deliver individual labour market success and global competitiveness, the reality is that it serves to residualise unacceptably large numbers of young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, by reinforcing the myth that it is acceptable to have the bifurcation in which some young people work with their hands and not their minds. Furthermore, vocational education and training by itself cannot resolve the fundamental causes of poverty, unemployment, and economic inequality. This article draws on Australian research to describe the insights from a critical ethnographic inquiry in which young people themselves are key informants in making sense of 'getting a job'; how they regard the labour market; the kind of work they find desirable/undesirable; the spaces in which they can see themselves forging an identity as future citizens/workers - and how answers to these questions frame and shape viable, sustainable, and rewarding futures for all young people, not just the privileged few. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.
Colin Clark and Australia
- Authors: Millmow, Alex
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: History of Economics Review Vol. 56, no. 1 (2012), p. 56-70
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- Description: Colin Clark was a rather quixotic figure. Much of his complex character is captured not only in his varied career choices but also the comments made of him by various referees over the years. While Clark spent half of his career in England and half in Australia it was to the latter that he was drawn. He was happy to be identified as an Australian economist. Despite his eminent academic record he was never to occupy a professorial chair in Australia. This was largely attributable to his own choices in career and his penchant for a doctrinaire brand of economics.
Football history off the field: utilising archived accounting reports to challenge "myths" about the history of an Australian football club
- Authors: Halabi, Abdel , Frost, Lionel , Lightbody, Margaret
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Accounting History Vol. 17, no. 1 (2012), p. 63-81
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Political imaginaries in question
- Authors: Adams, Suzi , Smith, Jeremy , Straume, Ingerid
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Critical Horizons Vol. 13, no. 1 (2012), p. 5-11
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- Description: This special issue of Critical Horizons takes up the problematic of political imaginaries from various angles. In putting political imaginaries into question, the conditions of possibility for “the political” (le politique) and “politics” (la politique) are interrogated, as well as the concrete, contemporary contexts in which they are embedded, and which they, in turn, transform. In light of the ongoing Global Financial Crisis, the continued ecological devastation of the earth, new sites of terrorism (such as Norway), but also the recent upsurge of protest movements around the world (from the socalled Arab Spring, to the Occupy movement), the questioning of existing horizons of political imaginaries are evident and, consequently, call for elucidation. The present special issue begins to articulate a field of responses to this urgent task.