IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04079927.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On impossibility to act at a distance. accounting quantification and territorialization in French Guiana penal colonies (1852-1867)

Author

Listed:
  • Antoine Fabre

    (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Pierre Labardin

    (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to pursue the work of Asdal (2011), focusing on limitations of accounting to act at a distance. Drawing on insights offered by notions of accounting inscription and territorialization, we identify such factors that inhibit the efficiency of action at a distance exploring daily quantification practices in organizations. Drawing on the introduction of accounting in French Guiana penal colonies in midnineteenth century, we highlight series of choices and effects faced by actors in charge of accounting. We point out combinations of such effects and choices that lead to emergence of inefficiency factors of action at a distance. Recording procedures may entrench preexisting practices that they are supposed to prevent. Monetary valuation and data aggregation processes, isolating quantified objects from larger causal relationships, may generate unexpected effects than those planned initially.

Suggested Citation

  • Antoine Fabre & Pierre Labardin, 2018. "On impossibility to act at a distance. accounting quantification and territorialization in French Guiana penal colonies (1852-1867)," Post-Print hal-04079927, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04079927
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04079927. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.