Revolt(ing) rituals: Critical accounting and the honesty we owe

IF 4.4 2区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Critical Perspectives on Accounting Pub Date : 2026-06-01 Epub Date: 2026-01-27 DOI:10.1016/j.cpa.2026.102845

Erin J. Twyford

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper interrogates the condition of critical accounting scholarship through Albert Camus’s notion of the absurd: the clash between our longing for meaning and the institutional indifference that greets it. I argue that we have become Sisyphean academics, pushing the boulder of emancipatory critique up the mountain of academic legitimacy, only to see it roll back down through metrics, rankings, and performative rituals. This absurdity is structured by impact factors, careerism, and a research economy that both demands critique and disarms it. Drawing on debates within the field, I suggest that critical accounting risks devolving into an ouroboros, endlessly consuming its own critique while retreating into narcissism and ritualised lament. Against this, I propose we engage in ‘lucid revolt’, a posture of honesty grounded in the refusal to look away. In an era where truth has become contested terrain, honesty becomes a form of resistance. This means naming what power seeks to obscure and recognising that even small acts of resistance matter. Revolt here is less about the promise of transformation than about learning to love the boulder. To persist with care and solidarity, to carry its weight together, and to find meaning in the act of pushing even when the summit will never be reached.

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反抗仪式：关键会计和我们所欠的诚实

本文通过阿尔贝·加缪的荒谬概念来探讨批判性会计学术的状况：我们对意义的渴望与迎接它的制度冷漠之间的冲突。我认为我们已经变成了西西弗斯式的学者，把解放批判的巨石推上学术合法性的大山，只看到它通过指标、排名和表演仪式滚下来。这种荒谬是由影响因素、职业主义和研究经济构成的，它们既需要批评，也需要解除它的武装。根据该领域内的辩论，我认为，批判性会计有可能演变成一条衔尾蛇，在陷入自恋和仪式化的哀叹的同时，无休止地消耗自己的批评。与此相反，我建议我们进行“清醒反抗”，一种以拒绝转移视线为基础的诚实姿态。在一个真理已成为争议之地的时代，诚实成为一种抵抗。这意味着指出权力试图掩盖的东西，并认识到即使是很小的抵抗行为也很重要。这里的反抗与其说是关于改变的承诺，不如说是关于学会爱巨石。要小心谨慎、团结一致地坚持下去，共同承担责任，即使永远达不到顶峰，也要在努力中找到意义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Critical Perspectives on Accounting BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

9.40

自引率

7.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： Critical Perspectives on Accounting aims to provide a forum for the growing number of accounting researchers and practitioners who realize that conventional theory and practice is ill-suited to the challenges of the modern environment, and that accounting practices and corporate behavior are inextricably connected with many allocative, distributive, social, and ecological problems of our era. From such concerns, a new literature is emerging that seeks to reformulate corporate, social, and political activity, and the theoretical and practical means by which we apprehend and affect that activity. Research Areas Include: • Studies involving the political economy of accounting, critical accounting, radical accounting, and accounting''s implication in the exercise of power • Financial accounting''s role in the processes of international capital formation, including its impact on stock market stability and international banking activities • Management accounting''s role in organizing the labor process • The relationship between accounting and the state in various social formations • Studies of accounting''s historical role, as a means of "remembering" the subject''s social and conflictual character • The role of accounting in establishing "real" democracy at work and other domains of life • Accounting''s adjudicative function in international exchanges, such as that of the Third World debt • Antagonisms between the social and private character of accounting, such as conflicts of interest in the audit process • The identification of new constituencies for radical and critical accounting information • Accounting''s involvement in gender and class conflicts in the workplace • The interplay between accounting, social conflict, industrialization, bureaucracy, and technocracy • Reappraisals of the role of accounting as a science and technology • Critical reviews of "useful" scientific knowledge about organizations