Discussant’s comments on Agyemang and Lehman’s
“Whose Story is it anyway? Accounting for Migration”
By
Marcia Annisette
Schulich School of Business, York University
Toronto, Canada
Summary of the paper
According to its authors the aim of the paper is to “capture…the possibility of a new language
for migration studies in the accounting discipline”. In short theirs is a quest to bring an
accounting lens (or more precisely a critical accounting lens) to extant theorizing and research
in migration studies. In achieving this objective the authors seek to borrow and extend de Hass’
framework which combines micro and macro analysis by focusing on both the migrant (in terms
of capabilities and aspirations) and the state1.
Very early in the paper the authors mobilize the concept of “Agency-as personal” (p. 1),
suggesting that both migration and accounting research would benefit from this expanded view
of agency. Arguing that the stories that the migrants tell remain hidden from official migration
accounts and discourses remain incomplete, the authors suggest that the central idea behind
“agency –as –personal” is the “accounts migrants provide themselves” and it is in this way
they position the potential of critical accounting to extant migration research.
The paper is therefore very much a celebration of the role of stories in bringing about social
change. Section 3 therefore highlights the role of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fictional tale Uncle
Tom’s Cabin in the abolition of slavery; provides an extended discussion of the liberating power
of oral history and reflects on critical accounting’s rich legacy of employing oral history to give
voice to the subordinated. Section 4 then turns to providing what the authors consider “a fuller
account of migration”. They do so by reproducing at length the story of Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist Jose Antonio Vargas (published on June 22 2011 in New York Times Magazine). Born
in the Philippines, Vargas had gone to the US at the age of 12 and was not aware of his illegal
status until the age of 16. The New York Times article in which he revealed his illegal status and
recounted his illegal migration to the US was Vargas’ protest of the US Senate’s failure to pass
the “Dream Act”, which would have granted amnesty to numerous individuals like Vargas2.
Finally in Section 5 the authors present a research agenda for critical accounting interventions
in migration research which are captured in the following statements:
1
This framework is enshrined in a working paper -The Determinants of International Migration: Conceptualizing
Policy, Origin and Destination Effects
2
that is they were younger than 36 years; had arrived in the United States as children, had lived in the US for five
years or more, were attending college or serving in the military.
Advocating accountability, critical research must unmask myths of migration
discourse, categorization, and measurements, and examine the socioeconomic
impacts of migration policies and conventional modeling and theories, as there
are inevitable links of accounting research and social justice. (p. 25)
.. critical accountants may contribute to migration debates, using qualitative
research methods and conducting in-depth interviews to trace and expose the
daily experiences of migrants’ lives
… tackle questions such as, what are the experiences of different groups of
migrants in their new countries? What personal narratives do they recount?
What economic activities are they engaged in, how do they account for them,
and how do they survive and succeed in new economic environments? What are
the aspirations and capabilities that are drawn upon and utilised by migrants?
developing oral histories of migration, alongside the technical accounting
histories in order to emphasize interrelationships provides one possible stream
of such research.
With an abundance of narratives, images, hardships and triumphs to capture and
record, these stories need to be preserved and accounted for by the discipline
providing accounts and calculations of migration
Some comments on how the paper can be improved
First of all, I wish to commend the authors for taking the step towards opening up to migration
research to accounting scholarship. This paper has the potential to be the manifesto for critical
accounting interventions into the field of migration research and practice. At this stage
however, far too much of the paper is ‘hand waving’ about critical accounting research and its
achievements. After reading the paper I still do not know what is at stake in critical accounting
researchers’ failure to engage with the theory and practice of migration. So I suggest that some
heavy engagement with the field of migration studies is warranted. Such engagement should
present its broad contours and clearly identify why critical accounting perspectives into
migration is likely to matter. And importantly as well, matter for whom: Academics? Policy
makers? Migrants? This concern begs the question, what indeed do we as critical accounting
researchers, bring to the table? Much of what the paper suggests seems to fall in the realm of
research methods (qualitative research methods, oral history, in-depth interviews), the mastery
of which is not the exclusive preserve of critical accounting researchers. Otherwise the paper
points to research questions that to my mind are more appropriately addressed by other
disciplinary fields (for example “examining socioeconomic impacts of migration policies”). I
believe therefore that what the paper lacks is a clearer vision of what we as critical accounting
researchers can contribute to migration research and practice and suggest that an appropriate
way to craft that vision is by first considering what has been our value added to the broader
academy of social scientific research. At a minimum I do think that we are best poised to
examine the way in which accounting and other calculative technologies have informed policy
and practice. So I think that our primary analytical gaze should be on the policy and practice of
migration. In short whilst I do fully endorse the view that the stories migrants tell can
substantially enrich our theoretical understanding of migration and the broader processes of
which migration is part (i.e. globalization), I do think that the positioning of critical accounting
as merely the vehicle for doing so is far too modest an agenda for critical accounting
intervention into this field.