The development of a new materialist practice theory perspective on accounting: toward performativist inquiry

Ongoing digitalization calls for the development of a fresh practice theory perspective on accounting. In a digitalized environment, accounting is not a constitutive human practice, but a constitutive sociomaterial practice in which humans no longer occupy the central seat of agency. In the new materialist practice theory perspective as proposed in this paper, a priori agency is not a fixed property of already meaningfully existing humans, but is enacted in performative practices. By thinking with Baradian new materialist philosophy (Barad, 2003, 2007, 2014) performance measurement is understood as a performative material-discursive practice that brings about meaningful subject positions for both humans and nonhumans from which they can meaningfully act. This conception is illustrated by an example in rheumatic care. For the study of performance measurement (and more broadly accounting) in this conception, the paper proposes performativist inquiry (PI) as an ethico-onto-epistemology. PI is a practice of inquiry that participates in the becoming of the world. Both the performance measurement practice, and the practice of performativist inquiry into performance measurement are about differencing the world, not about (imperfectly) representing a world that is already out there.