{"title":"Cultural sustainability and the construction of (in)commensurability: cultural heritage at the Roşia Montană mining site","authors":"Oana Apostol, Hannele Mäkelä, Eija Vinnari","doi":"10.1016/j.cpa.2023.102577","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Accounting scholars have begun to pay increasing attention to commensuration, in other words the valuation of different objects with a common metric. There are also a few studies on a diametrically opposed process, namely incommensuration. However, what is missing from this prior research is a more nuanced examination of how (in)commensurability is socially constructed in relation to different approaches to value. Such an examination is important as it adds to our understanding about the interplay of those complex social processes and the associated moral reasoning. The purpose of this study is to examine forms of (in)commensuration work associated with different approaches to the value of cultural heritage. In empirical terms, we study a major controversy related to a Canadian mining company’s plans to open a gold mine in the municipality of Roşia Montană, Western Romania. Our empirical data is gathered from a variety of sources: public documents released by the company, national and international non-governmental organisations, state agencies, and religious institutions; online archives of two major national newspapers from 2002 until 2021; and public consultation material from the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment. Our study makes a twofold contribution. First, we add to the accounting literature on (in)commensuration work by developing and applying a framework that considers both commensuration work and incommensuration work and connects these two forms of work to different approaches to value as well as to the different ways of drawing boundaries around elements of cultural heritage. Second, we expand previous research on accounting and sustainability by focusing on the rarely explored theme of cultural sustainability.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48078,"journal":{"name":"Critical Perspectives on Accounting","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 102577"},"PeriodicalIF":8.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235423000254/pdfft?md5=03d1ceafb6d66e57acbaccaa7883e223&pid=1-s2.0-S1045235423000254-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Perspectives on Accounting","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235423000254","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Accounting scholars have begun to pay increasing attention to commensuration, in other words the valuation of different objects with a common metric. There are also a few studies on a diametrically opposed process, namely incommensuration. However, what is missing from this prior research is a more nuanced examination of how (in)commensurability is socially constructed in relation to different approaches to value. Such an examination is important as it adds to our understanding about the interplay of those complex social processes and the associated moral reasoning. The purpose of this study is to examine forms of (in)commensuration work associated with different approaches to the value of cultural heritage. In empirical terms, we study a major controversy related to a Canadian mining company’s plans to open a gold mine in the municipality of Roşia Montană, Western Romania. Our empirical data is gathered from a variety of sources: public documents released by the company, national and international non-governmental organisations, state agencies, and religious institutions; online archives of two major national newspapers from 2002 until 2021; and public consultation material from the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment. Our study makes a twofold contribution. First, we add to the accounting literature on (in)commensuration work by developing and applying a framework that considers both commensuration work and incommensuration work and connects these two forms of work to different approaches to value as well as to the different ways of drawing boundaries around elements of cultural heritage. Second, we expand previous research on accounting and sustainability by focusing on the rarely explored theme of cultural sustainability.
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