Social studies of accounting have drawn attention to the dubious role of accounting as a representational link between organizational realities and action. Based on five years immersion with performance management and board work in a theatre company, this thesis inquires into the ontological significance of accounting practices. The study takes a praxiographic approach, which emphasizes action and relocates questions of representation towards the practices in which representations are mobilized. The research questions refer specifically to ontological work related to commensurability and distance in accounting practices. Four papers attend to the manners in which the organizational performance of the theatre company is represented in different situations of managing, governing and reporting. The papers demonstrate and analyse different examples of ontological work involved in achieving (or retracting) representational links. In conclusion, the thesis places the organizing of ontological tensions – especially the tension between singular accounting representations and multiple organizational realities – at the core of accounting representation practices. The thesis thus contributes to practical, theoretical and philosophical discussions on the links between accounting practices, accounts and reality. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Society’s efforts to ‘manage’ the problem of human-induced climate change – for example through setting targets, tracking progress, imposing sanctions and incentives, and creating markets in emission rights and offsets – have given rise to numerous calculation, measurement, attribution, monitoring, reporting and verification challenges, which are being addressed by many different communities (including scientists, governments, businesses and accountants) in many different ways. Carbon accounting – this diverse and ever-expanding assemblage of calculative practices – is a rapidly evolving phenomenon, which has only recently become a subject of academic accountancy-related research. This thesis explores what carbon accounting means, who it involves, and how different communities define and lay claim to competence in the field. It also examines, through case studies on the emergence of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board and the controversies around generating tradable carbon offsets from forestry projects in the UK, the immense technical, cognitive, social and political work required to make carbon measurable, commensurable and thereby amenable to various forms of management. The thesis contributes to both conceptual and practical understanding of carbon accounting as an emerging field of study. Bringing together a wide range of empirical examples of different types of carbon accounting practices, it proposes a unique definition of carbon accounting which expands the horizons of the field. It provides a conceptual basis for making sense of carbon accounting by considering it not as a unitary phenomenon but rather as a set of overlapping frames, each associated with different communities of practice. It shows that competence in carbon accounting is contested, particularly where these frames overlap, and that boundary organisations are emerging that offer the opportunity to negotiate such tensions and lead to more productive policy-making. Finally, it makes the case that engagement with the detail of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of carbon accounting is essential, as these apparently technical details can have major implications for the effectiveness of society’s response to climate change, and it is only by opening them up to rigorous scrutiny that we can make progress, both conceptually and practically.

This dissertation utilizes three independent research projects to examine one overarching theoretical question: How do people understand, contest, negotiate, and / or rationalize the ways in which bodies-human, animal, and microbial - are socially constructed as commensurate, or not, in science? Using three unique projects focusing on either the human, animal, or microbial body, this dissertation broadly explores the social processes inherent in the construction of "bodies" for scientific research. This dissertation explores the complexity of how bodies are used in science, how this is understood by individuals, and the impacts this has not only on science but also the intertwined lives of animals, humans, and their microbes. Each paper explores a key set of questions drawing from a shared set of theoretical lenses, including local biology and biolooping, commensuration, the biovalue of bodies, and the microbiome. Specifically this dissertation presentation will explore these questions: 1) How are Japanese bodies socially constructed as different from other bodies in ethnobridging clinical trials?; 2) How is local biology employed as a technique of commensuration at the site of the Japanese body, by the government, and the global pharmaceutical industry and what does this mean for scientific studies utilizing it in this way?; 3) How do scientists construct nonhuman primates as appropriate proxies for humans in biomedical research experiments?; 4) How do individuals understand themselves and their health in relation to pet dogs and microbes?; and 5) How do humans understand the ways in which humans, animals, and microbes co-create their biological and social worlds? This dissertation shows how the construction of the body as an object of scientific study is negotiated, contested, and taken up in daily life, and how this is flexible, malleable, and not at all uniform. It explores the ways in which biomedical knowledge of the body is socially constructed and how it co-creates the animal, microbial, environmental, and cultural worlds in which it circulates. Through doing so and using techniques and lenses grounded in biosocial anthropology, this dissertation adds to the literature on the body in both medical and multispecies anthropology.

Cette recherche explore les mécanismes par lesquels des principes méthodologiques d'interprétation et d'explication définissent des relations de causalité particulières qui ont façonné et façonnent aujourd'hui un certain discours sur la gestion de l'eau, un certain développement des sciences et des techniques de l'eau et un certain pouvoir sur l'eau. Nous nous appuyons sur un cas d'étude particulier, celui de la gestion de l'eau dans le bassin de la Garonne. Quelles relations causales ont permis de façonner les stratégies favorisant la construction d'infrastructures hydrauliques ? Quelles relations de pouvoir ont permis à ces stratégies de s'imposer ? Quels schèmes interprétatifs ont été mobilisés, quelles structures de signification ont-ils alimentées et quelles structures de domination ont-ils renforcées ou au contraire affaiblies? La réponse à ces questions exige de caractériser et de comprendre la gestion de l'eau actuelle dans le bassin de la Garonne. Un examen de l'histoire des infrastructures hydrauliques du Sud-ouest de la France, des rapports de force et des justifications qui leur ont été associés met en lumière de nombreuses reformulations paradigmatiques. Le problème de la gestion de l'eau a été successivement décrit de façons très différentes par des acteurs poursuivant chacun leurs stratégies propres. La modélisation en tant qu'outil contribue largement à produire notre représentation de la nature et de ses enjeux. Comme toute science et technologie, la modélisation et les indicateurs ont été des constructions sociales et politiques qui ont façonné la perception du problème. Enfin, les modalités d'insertion des experts au sein des divers mécanismes de prises de décision ont activement participé à ces processus. Cette recherche nous informe sur les relations intimes entre maîtrise de l'eau d'un côté et construction des sciences et des technologies de l'eau de l'autre. Les résultats nous permettent aussi de reconsidérer le problème de la pénurie d'eau. Les modèles et les indicateurs développés et promus ne sont pas des représentations objectives : ils façonnent certaines représentations et contribuent à les légitimer. Il s'agit d'actants, c'est-à-dire des entités humaines ou non, qui s'organisent, se structurent en prenant part aux controverses, et qui sont donc largement impliqués dans la construction du problème lui-même. Une constellation hydropolitique correspond à l'ensemble des acteurs et de leurs relations impliqués dans la maîtrise de l'eau, même s'ils peuvent être associés à une grande diversité d'enjeux, déployés à différentes échelles. Conceptualiser la constellation hydropolitique, impliquant des instruments, des méthodes et des acteurs particuliers demande une analyse approfondie avant de penser à des « solutions ».

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Det övergripande transportpolitiska målet i Sverige har sedan 1998 varit att säkerställa en samhällsekonomiskt effektiv och långsiktigt hållbar transportförsörjning för medborgarna och näringslivet i hela landet. Under perioden fram till 2010 har samhällsekonomiska underlag fått en allt tyngre roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och den statliga styrningen av den långsiktiga planeringen som ett verktyg för att prioritera mellan investeringar i nya vägar och järnvägslänkar. I studien utforskades den samhällsekonomiska analysens roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och dess styrning av den regionala infrastrukturplaneringen. Studien utgår ifrån ett konstruktivistiskt angreppssätt och en syn på relationen mellan vetenskap/expertis och politik som samproducerad. Det empiriska material som ligger till grund för analysen består av dokument och intervjutranskriptioner. De dokument som har analyserats är publikationer om den samhällsekonomiska analysmetoden, utgivna av myndigheten Statens institut för kommunikationsanalys (SIKA) och dels olika typer av transportpolitiska dokument. Intervjuerna genomfördes med tretton regionala beslutsfattare och en tjänsteman, vilka varit delaktiga i upprättandet av en regional infrastrukturplan i Västra Götaland. Studien visar att samhällsekonomisk analys är en värderingsmetod med stort inflytande i den formulerade transportpolitiken. Trots att den framställs som ett objektivt sätt att utvärdera den samhällsekonomiska effektiviteten hos väg- och järnvägsobjekt, och i förlängningen deras bidrag till det övergripande målet, utgör metodens grunder till stor del en svart låda i den transportpolitiska diskussionen. Detta gäller även hos de intervjuade beslutsfattarna, men de konstruerar den enskilde politikerns omdöme som den viktigaste grunden för beslut. / The study deals with applied cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the significant role this method has acquired in transport policy in Sweden since 1998. It is a study of a valuation method at the intersection between neoclassical economics, expertise, Swedish transport policy, long term planning and regional decision makers. Specifically, it focuses on the co-production of expertise and politics and how boundaries are drawn between them in relation to valuation. Departing from a constructionist approach to science and expertise, the study is concerned with how CBA and valuation is depicted in various contexts. The empirical foundation of the study concists of documents dealing with CBA, several kinds of transport policy documents and interview transcripts resulting from interviews with thirteen regional decision makers and one regional official. The analysis shows the significant influence of CBA on transport policy. While this valuation method is depicted as an objective valuation tool in planning, its conceptual foundation tends to be black-boxed outside the domain of expertise. This applies also to the interviewed regional decision makers. However, they delimit the space for CBA as a sufficient decision support. In addition, they construct judgment as the most important basis for decisions on infrastructure. Still, it is argued, the black-boxing of CBA in transport policy affect the political landscape negatively: it entails a risk that important political issues are made more inaccessible for public debate.

Det övergripande transportpolitiska målet i Sverige har sedan 1998 varit att säkerställa en samhällsekonomiskt effektiv och långsiktigt hållbar transportförsörjning för medborgarna och näringslivet i hela landet. Under perioden fram till 2010 har samhällsekonomiska underlag fått en allt tyngre roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och den statliga styrningen av den långsiktiga planeringen som ett verktyg för att prioritera mellan investeringar i nya vägar och järnvägslänkar. I studien utforskades den samhällsekonomiska analysens roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och dess styrning av den regionala infrastrukturplaneringen. Studien utgår ifrån ett konstruktivistiskt angreppssätt och en syn på relationen mellan vetenskap/expertis och politik som samproducerad. Det empiriska material som ligger till grund för analysen består av dokument och intervjutranskriptioner. De dokument som har analyserats är publikationer om den samhällsekonomiska analysmetoden, utgivna av myndigheten Statens institut för kommunikationsanalys (SIKA) och dels olika typer av transportpolitiska dokument. Intervjuerna genomfördes med tretton regionala beslutsfattare och en tjänsteman, vilka varit delaktiga i upprättandet av en regional infrastrukturplan i Västra Götaland. Studien visar att samhällsekonomisk analys är en värderingsmetod med stort inflytande i den formulerade transportpolitiken. Trots att den framställs som ett objektivt sätt att utvärdera den samhällsekonomiska effektiviteten hos väg- och järnvägsobjekt, och i förlängningen deras bidrag till det övergripande målet, utgör metodens grunder till stor del en svart låda i den transportpolitiska diskussionen. Detta gäller även hos de intervjuade beslutsfattarna, men de konstruerar den enskilde politikerns omdöme som den viktigaste grunden för beslut. / The study deals with applied cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the significant role this method has acquired in transport policy in Sweden since 1998. It is a study of a valuation method at the intersection between neoclassical economics, expertise, Swedish transport policy, long term planning and regional decision makers. Specifically, it focuses on the co-production of expertise and politics and how boundaries are drawn between them in relation to valuation. Departing from a constructionist approach to science and expertise, the study is concerned with how CBA and valuation is depicted in various contexts. The empirical foundation of the study concists of documents dealing with CBA, several kinds of transport policy documents and interview transcripts resulting from interviews with thirteen regional decision makers and one regional official. The analysis shows the significant influence of CBA on transport policy. While this valuation method is depicted as an objective valuation tool in planning, its conceptual foundation tends to be black-boxed outside the domain of expertise. This applies also to the interviewed regional decision makers. However, they delimit the space for CBA as a sufficient decision support. In addition, they construct judgment as the most important basis for decisions on infrastructure. Still, it is argued, the black-boxing of CBA in transport policy affect the political landscape negatively: it entails a risk that important political issues are made more inaccessible for public debate.