- Title
- Accounting and Slavery: the case of Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão (1755-1778)
- Creator
- Pinto, Ofelia
- Date
- 2014
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/96741
- Identifier
- vital:10153
- Abstract
- Contrary to the traditional view of accounting as a neutral technical practice, recent studies have increasingly viewed this technology as being social and institutional in both its orientation and effects. An important outcome of these portrayals of accounting’s decisive influence within organisations and broader contexts has been to highlight the enabling role it has played within significant historical events. This has included exploration of what has been termed the “dark side” of accounting: abhorrent episodes from human history in which accounting has been implicated. Slavery is one such episode. Adopting the conception of accounting as a social and institutional practice, this interpretative historical study applies the concept of “action at a distance” and previous literature on the interrelations between accounting and the state as a conceptual framework to critically analyse the accounting practices that were developed and adopted by the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão, a Portuguese company established primarily for the purpose of trading in human beings (slaves) in the second half of the 18th century. As well as providing a novel addition to the literature dealing with the “dark side” of accounting, this archive-based case study also sheds further light on accounting’s potential to act as a powerful agent of social change, including its facilitation of episodes of human misery.; Doctor of Philsophy
- Publisher
- Federation University Australia
- Rights
- Open Access
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Accounting history; Slavery; Maranhao; Slave trade
- Full Text
- Thesis Supervisor
- West, Brian
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