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Critical social analysis seeks, amongst other things, to delineate and foster more emancipatory types of discipline and practice. In so doing, it appropriately turns to and can come to be informed and influenced by a broad range of subject areas and empirical focuses, including some that substantially parallel its own emancipatory project. The concern of this article is to explore the case of liberation theology as a social discipline and practice, including as a practice attending to the spiritual and theological. The article's intervention is consistent with the inspirational and insightful character of the theological and reflection upon religious beliefs and values. The concern is to reflect upon the possibilities and potentialities of analysis for accounting. The article explores the sense in which a review of liberation theology can provide critical researchers concerned to locate and promote a more emancipatory accounting with new insights and inspiration.

The purpose of this paper is to add to efforts to treat the relationship between accounting, democracy and emancipation more seriously, giving recognition to difference in this context. To open up space for emancipatory praxis vis-à-vis accounting, the authors articulate a delineation of accounting as a differentiated universal and emphasise the significance of an appreciation of accounting as contextually situated. The authors outline implications of a reading of new pragmatism for emancipatory praxis in relation to accounting that takes democracy and difference seriously.

Critical and analytical argument reflecting upon previous literature in the humanities and social sciences (e.g. Laclau and Mouffe, 2001) and in accounting (e.g. Gallhofer and Haslam, 2003; Bebbington et al., 2007; Brown, 2009, 2010; Blackburn et al., 2014; Brown and Dillard, 2013a, b; Dillard and Yuthas, 2013) to consider further accounting’s alignment to an emancipatory praxis taking democracy and difference seriously.

A vision and framing of emancipatory praxis vis-à-vis accounting is put forward as a contribution that the authors hope stimulates further discussion.

The authors extend and bolster previous literature seeking to align accounting and emancipation through further reflection upon new pragmatist perspectives on democracy and difference. In the articulations and emphases here, the authors make some particular contributions including notably the following. The accounting delineation, which includes appreciation of accounting as a differentiated universal, and a considered approach to appreciation of accounting as contextually situated help to open up further space for praxis vis-à-vis accounting. The authors offer a general outline of accounting’s positioning vis-à-vis a reading of a new pragmatist perspective on emancipatory praxis. The authors articulate the perspective in terms of key principles of design for emancipatory praxis vis-à-vis accounting: take seriously an accounting delineation freeing accounting from unnecessary constraints; engage with all accountings in accord with a principle of prioritisation; engage with accounting in a way appreciative of its properties, dimensions and contextual situatedness; engage more generally in a new pragmatist praxis. This adds support to and extends prior literature. The authors elaborate in this context how appreciation of a new pragmatist continuum thinking that helps to highlight and bring out emancipatory and repressive dimensions of accounting can properly inform interaction with existing as well as new envisaged accountings, including what the authors term here “official” accountings.

This paper aims to explore the biodiversity and threatened species extinction reporting of 54 biodiversity-indexed companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The primary objectives are to explore the rhetoric of biodiversity disclosure as a practice of virtue ethics and to identify instances of emancipatory extinction accounts on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

The research sample comprised 54 biodiversity-indexed companies on the IDX. A content analysis of the narrative text of their annual and sustainability reports for 2020 was conducted to discern the rhetoric of biodiversity disclosure as an ethical practice using Aristotle’s rhetoric (ethos, logos and pathos). The identification of extinction accounts listed on the IUCN Red List was conducted based on criteria established in the conceptual framework of Atkins and Maroun (2018).

All 54 companies used ethos, logos and pathos in their biodiversity disclosure as a virtuous practice. These disclosures improve the tone of corporate communications and enhance accountability and transparency. Low-profile companies showed a greater propensity for reporting biodiversity disclosures compared to high-profile companies. Additionally, the authors identified 14 companies informing extinction accounts that qualify as emancipatory accounts, with high-profile companies disclosing extinction more frequently than low-profile ones. Emancipatory accounting highlighted species such as turtles, orangutans, elephants, rhinos, turtles and medicinal plants. These accounts are intended as a form of accountability to the species.

The limitation of this research is the observation of annual reports in one period. Future studies can add more observation periods to see the consistency of companies in disclosing biodiversity and extinction.

Companies can adopt the rhetorical strategy of ethos, logos and pathos in disclosing their biodiversity. For policymakers, it is important to establish regulations to encourage companies to disclose biodiversity. The implications for accountants, to contribute more to biodiversity and extinction reporting, considering that previously sustainability accounting reporting was mostly carried out by nonaccountants.

Regarding social implications, emancipatory accounts aimed at preventing the extinction of animals such as birds, orangutans and rhinos will have significant social and natural impacts.

This research represents the first use of Aristotelian rhetoric and virtue to understand biodiversity disclosure as virtue rhetoric and extinction disclosure as emancipatory accounting. This rhetoric is a benevolent persuasion tool that can shape the audience’s thinking and behavior in a more ethical manner concerning biodiversity issues. It provides evidence of the role of accounting as a social and moral practice, which is particularly relevant in the face of a complex reality and increasing concerns, notably regarding the threat of biodiversity loss and extinction.

This paper extends the nature and relevance of exploring the historical roots of social and environmental accounting by investigating an account that recorded and made visible pollution in 17th century London. John Evelyn's Fumifugium (1661) is characterised as an external social account that bears resemblance to contemporary external accounting particularly given its problematising intentionality.

An interpretive content analysis of the text draws out the themes and features of social accounting. Emancipatory accounting theory is the theoretical lens through which Evelyn's social account is interpreted, applying a microhistory research approach. We interpret Fumifugium as a social account with reference to the context of the reporting accountant.

In this early example of a stakeholder “giving an account” rather than an “account rendered” by an entity, Evelyn problematises industrial pollution and its impacts with the stated intention of changing industrial practices. We find that Fumifugium was used in challenging, resisting and seeking to solve an environmental problem by highlighting the adverse consequences to those in power and rendering new solutions thinkable.

This is the first research paper to extend investigations of the historical roots of social and environmental accounting into the 17th century. It also extends research investigating alternative forms of account by focusing on a report produced by an interested party and includes a novel use of the emancipatory accounting theoretical lens to investigate this historic report. Fumifugium challenged the lack of accountability of businesses in ways similar to present-day campaigns to address the overwhelming challenge of climate change.

We are currently experiencing what is often called the sixth period of mass extinction on planet Earth, caused undoubtedly by the impact of human activities and businesses on nature. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential for accounting and corporate accountability to contribute to extinction prevention. The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach, weaving scientific evidence and theory into organisational disclosure and reporting in order to demonstrate linkages between extinction, business behaviour, accounting and accountability as well as to provide a basis for developing a framework for narrative disclosure on extinction prevention.

The paper is theoretical and interdisciplinary in approach, seeking to bring together scientific theories of extinction with a need for corporate and organisational accountability whilst recognising philosophical concerns in the extant environmental accounting literature about accepting any business role and capitalist mechanisms in ecological matters. The overarching framework derives from the concept of emancipatory accounting.

The outcome of the writing is to: present an emancipatory “extinction accounting” framework which can be embedded within integrated reports, and a diagrammatic representation, in the form of an “ark”, of accounting and accountability mechanisms which, combined, can assist, the authors argue, in preventing extinction. The authors suggest that the emancipatory framework may also be applied to engagement meetings between the responsible investor community (and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)) and organisations on biodiversity and species protection.

The exploratory extinction accounting and accountability frameworks within this paper should provide a basis for further research into the emancipatory potential for organisational disclosures and mechanisms of governance and accountability to prevent species extinction.

The next steps for researchers and practitioners involve development and implementation of the extinction accounting and engagement frameworks presented in this paper within integrated reporting and responsible investor practice.

As outlined in this paper, extinction of any species of flora and fauna can affect significantly the functioning of local and global ecosystems, the destruction of which can have, and is having, severe and dangerous consequences for human life. Extinction prevention is critically important to the survival of the human race.

This paper represents a comprehensive attempt to explore the emancipatory role of accounting in extinction prevention and to bring together the linkages in accounting and accountability mechanisms which, working together, can prevent species extinction.

If we are concerned to develop an emancipatory accounting, and if we are sensitive towards the tendencies to ethnocentrism, chronocentrism and dogmatism, we can potentially gain insights from the social and critical theoretical analysis of any phenomena, whatever be their location in time and space. This is the position held by advocates of critical and interdisciplinary research in accounting. Adopts this position and draws from the critique of art. More specifically, points to insights for the development of any emancipatory accounting by concentration on debates on the role of art in the emancipatory project that took place in early twentieth century Germany.

The purpose of this paper is to outline an ecofeminist lens for the analysis of accounting, which is applied to: first, the critique of corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR); second, the elaboration of elements of a framework for a new accounting – corporate nature responsibility reporting (CNRR) – as a response to the critique of CSRR; and, third, the consideration of elements of an enabling and emancipatory praxis in the context of CNRR, including a sketch of a research agenda.

The paper presents a critical application of aspects of the ecofeminist critique of Western dualism and its emphasis on wholeness, interconnectedness and relatedness, including its particular delineation of nature, to the critique and design of accounting.

Insights from the application of an ecofeminist lens to the critique of CSRR raise questions about the suitability of the western notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its associated accounting currently in use. In order to go beyond critique, the paper introduces the notions of corporate nature responsibility (CNR) and CNRR and offers an outline of key elements of CNRR and an emancipatory praxis in the context of CNRR, including a sketch of a research agenda. The author’s elaborations suggest that in order to overcome the limitations of CSR and CSRR, a corporation ought to be concerned about its broader and holistic CNR. And, it should provide a CNR report, as part of a holistic CNRR concerned with the performance of the company in the context of CNR.

Through creating new visibilities, CNRR has the potential to enhance the well-being of people and nature more generally.

Ecofeminism’s critique of western dichotomous thinking has been given little consideration in prior studies of accounting. The paper thus draws attention to the relevance of an ecofeminist theoretical lens for the critique and design of accounting by focussing on CSRR. The paper introduces the concepts of CNR and CNRR to address the limitations of CSRR as currently practiced.

This paper aims to report on subalterns' emancipatory accounting (SEA) embedded in transformation of governance and accountability structures (GAS) in Ceylon Tea.

The paper draws on James Scott's political anthropology to examine how subalterns' resistance and emancipatory accounting triggers structural transformations.

An attempt is made to theorise subaltern resistance as a form of emancipatory accounting. Concerning the commentaries that accounting has been to suppress or hegemonise the subalterns and appreciating the analysis of indigenous resistance implicated in emancipatory potential, this paper examines how a distinct subaltern group in Ceylon Tea deployed their own weapons towards the changes in GAS.

The accounting literature neglects how subalterns reconstruct governance and accountability structures: this paper introduces a social accounting perspective on resistance, control and structural transformations. Also, it introduces to accounting researchers James Scott's political anthropology as an alternative framework.

This paper explores the reporting of the Russian American Company (RAC), from 1840 to 1863. Trading in fur, company fears of animal extinctions viewed from a monetary perspective led to early extinction reporting practice. These were not altruistic reports; they were generated by a wish to use natural resources. Despite the motivations, these reports present an example of successful extinction management by a for-profit company and a workable example of emancipatory extinction accounting.

Using thematic analysis, this study demonstrates how moving from transparency to accountability driven accounting can assist in biodiversity reporting, by exploring this historical business case of extinction management through the lens of Atkins and Maroun's (2018) extinction framework.

The application of the framework to the RAC's set of reports indicates that this offers a viable proposal for development of extinction management, providing a reporting tool for a for-profit company.

Exploring RAC's reports focusing on their extinction management processes and reporting, the paper contributes to the contemporary debate on the development of extinction reporting frameworks. These historical examples of extinction accounting, show extinction management and reporting is not a unique contemporary development in accounting. The research uses historical data as the empirical foundation for exploring applicability and further development of this extinction framework.

This paper examines how accounting either contributes to or undermines worker resistance to unfair pay, thereby enhancing our current understanding of the emancipatory potential of accounting.

We apply Jacques Rancière's concept of politics and build on recent calls to introduce Rancière's work to accounting by analysing a case based on workers in an Australian supermarket chain who challenged their employer Coles over wage underpayments.

We find that in this case, accounting is, in part, a means to politics and a part of the police in Rancière's sense. More specifically, accounting operated within the established order to constrain the workers, but also provided workers with a resource for their political acts that enabled change.

This empirical research adds to Li and McKernan (2016) and Brown and Tregidga (2017) conceptual work on Rancière. It also contributes more broadly to emancipatory accounting research by identifying radical possibilities for workers' accounting to bring about change.