5 June 2024

CAS member Stephen Walker’s project on the role of accounting and accountants in the operation of debt slavery, the most common form of modern slavery, has produced three published papers.
Hand holding credit card

In ‘The Blindfold Witness? An Accountant’s Response to Debt Slavery and Atrocity in the Devil’s Paradise’ (British Accounting Review, 2023, 55(3), 101068) he investigates an auditor’s alleged wilful blindness to the operation and human consequences of debt slavery. The study has implications for the exercise of professional scepticism and moral courage.

In ‘The Peruvian Amazon Company: An Accounting Perspective’ (Enterprise & Society, 2024, 25 (1), 281-306), Walker examines the financial reporting practices of a notorious case of the exploitation and subjugation of indigenous peoples in the early twentieth century. The study also points to the emancipatory role of accounting in bringing such practices to light.

‘Accounting and Racial Violence in the Postbellum American South’ (Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, articles in press) explores how accounting was central to the operation of peonage in Southern rural society after the American Civil War. The paper explores the relationship between accounting and physical violence. It demonstrates how in a racist context accounting could be a source of confrontational tension leading to threatening behaviour, assaults and lynching.