Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy

by Marilyn Strathern

With contributions from leading academics from a range of study areas such as anthropology, politics and management studies, this volume is opening up a new area of research to anthropologists and corporations alike.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Philosophy

Paperback

First published July 13, 2000

Reviews

[Alex Lee]

Despite the huge applicability of its topic, this is actually a pretty focused book. It's mainly about audit culture in academia... how it filters out into the rest of the world is left untalked about. Much of audit culture has do to with the technology of self, the deployment of power and the role of accountability and morality. All of this has to do with how decisions are justified by a group and how power is kept hidden through the (neutral) bureaucratic constraints of people living and working together. The book is very narrowly focused as a start of the topic; but the range it could be expanded to is virtually unlimited.

This is a must read for anyone interested in neoliberalism and its implications... but it isn't a definitive text. This is just a starting point.

[Hal]

Recommended by DG in bureaucracy book