Urban and Economic Geography

Type: Paper Session

Time: 11/13/2020 02:30 PM (Central Time (US & Canada)) to 3:45 PM

Session Description and Agenda

This session will focus on urban areas and economic geography.

Bridging Critical Accounting Studies and Urban Geography

Session: Urban and Economic Geography
Type: Paper Session

Abstract

In this paper, I will review recent trends in critical accounting studies, and discuss how the insights of this field can inform work in urban geography. With the rise of neoliberal urban governance, and more recently austerity urbanism, contemporary urban governance has been described as “rule by accountancy.” Yet the intricacies of accounting practice have been underexplored. Meanwhile, critical accounting studies, drawing on performative theory, interrogates accounting practices as exercises in power that draw people and institutions into ties of obligation (accountability), shape social relations, and structure economic activity.  Bringing this lens to urban governance, practices of accounting can be understood not just as technocratic tools of state actors, but as a contested terrain of urban political struggle. I ground these ideas in a discussion of the accounting practices that undergird a movement for water affordability policy in Detroit, Michigan.

Authors