Genealogical method and analysis

Authors: Kearins K.; Hooper K.

Source: Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Volume 15, Number 5, 2002 , pp. 733-757(25)

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $38.00 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

This paper outlines and exemplifies the use of a method for analysing power relations based on the work of French social theorist, Michel Foucault. The overall research aim of genealogical analysis is to produce "a history of the present", a history which is essentially critical with its focus on locating forms of power, the channels it takes and the discourses it permeates. Research combining Foucauldian theorisation and method necessarily involves a selective search for injustice and subjection to reveal plausible alternatives to more pervasively modernist histories, which tend to revere progress. Salient features of a genealogical research method are detailed in the context of an actual research project previously conducted by the authors and reproduced here for the purposes of exemplification explicitly as a genealogy.

Keywords: Accounting History; Research Methods

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09513570210448984

Publication date: 2002-11-13