Accounting, territorialization and power

This essay aims to introduce readers to the social studies of accounting, atten-ding in particular to the roles and relevance of Foucault’s works for this field. We provide a brief overview of social studies of accounting, discuss recent developments in Foucault orien-ted accounting scholarship, and position the articles that appear in this special issue in the context of these developments. In the concluding section, we argue that accounting is an in-herently territorializing activity. The calculative instruments of accountancy transform not on-ly the possibilities for personhood, they also construct the physical and abstract calculable spaces that individuals inhabit. A focus on territorializing shifts attention to the links between calculating and governing.