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Accounting's Uses In Exploitative Human Engineering: Theorizing Citizenship, Indirect Rule And Britain's Imperial Expansion, Shanta S. K. Davie

Accounting Historians Journal

This historical study starts from the argument that financial economic quantification using accounting concepts and analysis has always been an essential and integral part of effective policies and activities for Britain's empire building. Theories of citizenship are used in particular to examine the close association between accounting and imperial policies during British indirect rule in Fiji. Through an examination of archival data and other relevant source materials, the paper highlights the ways in which accounting helped translate imperial forms of oppression and injustice into everyday work practice. Indirect rule generally required the separation and subordination of the native population as …