The interface of race and accounting: a reply to Burrows

Abstract

We appreciate the opportunity to reply to the response of Geoff Burrows (GB henceforth) to our article (F&T, 2000) and we commend him for extending our study of Hawaiian sugar-plantation accounting to other venues (Florida and Queensland) and time periods (mid-late twentieth century). This rejoinder is divided into two sections. First, we address issues GB raises in which he suggests that the labour structures of the sugar industry make it inappropriate for the generation of efficiency data on individual workers. Second, and more significantly from our perspective, we address the weightier question of the interface between accounting and racism.

Keywords

racism sugar-plantation history accounting history labour control slavery

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alagiah, R. , (1999), “Archaeology and Genealogy in Accounting History and the Economic Status of Indigenous Australian Families” , paper presented at The Academy of Accounting Historians Research Conference, Toronto, November.

Alchian, A. and Demsetz, H. , (1972), “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization” , American Economic Review, Vol.62, pp. 777-795 .

Annisette, M. , (1999), “Importing Accounting: The Case of Trinidad and Tobago” , Accounting, Business and Financial History, Vol.9, No.1, pp. 103-133 .

Beechert, E.D. , (1993), “Patterns of Resistance and the Social Relations of Production in Hawaii”, in Lal, B.V. , Munro, D. , and Beechert, E.D. (eds.), Plantation Workers: Resistance and Accommodation, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press , pp.45-67.

Fleischman, R.K. and Tyson, T.N. , (2000), “The interface of race and accounting: the case of Hawaiian sugar plantations, 1835-1920” , Accounting History, NS Vol.5, No.1, pp. 7-32 .

Fogel, R.W. , (1989), Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Fogel, R.W. and Engerman, S.L. , (1974), Time on the Cross, 2 volumes, Boston: Little, Brown and Co.

Francis, J. , (1990), “After Virtue? Accounting as a Moral and Discursive Practice” , Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol.5, No.5, pp. 5-17 .

Funnell, W. , (1998), “Accounting in the Service of the Holocaust” , Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol.9, No.4, pp. 435-464 .

10.

Moody, V.A. , (1924), “Slavery on Louisiana Sugar Plantations” , Louisiana Historical Quarterly, Vol.7, No.2, pp. 191-300 .

11.

Tinker, A.M. , (1991), “The Accountant as Partisan” , Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol.16, No.3, pp. 297-310 .

12.

Tyson, T. , (1990), “Accounting for Labor in the Early 19th Century: The U.S. Arms Making Experience” , Accounting Historians Journal, Vol.17, No.1, pp. 47-59 .