Title: On neo-colonialism and the colonisation of accounting research

Authors: Wm. Dennis Huber

Addresses: School of Business and Technology, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN 55402, USA

Abstract: While assertions of the colonisation of accounting research have occasionally been made in the accounting literature, not only has there been no systematic examination of the evidence that supports these conclusions, no evidence has yet been proffered. This paper explores whether accounting research has been colonised by considering sociologically the essential elements of colonisation and whether they can be applied to accounting research. A critical examination of the elements of colonisation - control over communication, capital, culture, and education; elitism; and English as the dominant language - finds that accounting research has been colonised by acts of symbolic violence, which has resulted in misrecognised class distinctions and neo-colonial dependency relationships within accounting research. It urges accounting researchers recognise the neo-colonial power relationships that have been imposed upon them by the cultural imperialism of the dominant research culture.

Keywords: accounting research; colonisation; neo-colonialism; research construct; meta-construct; symbolic violence; false consciousness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2017.083635

International Journal of Critical Accounting, 2017 Vol.9 No.1, pp.18 - 41

Received: 21 Jun 2016
Accepted: 22 Jun 2016
Published online: 13 Apr 2017 *

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