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

Do audit cultures deliver greater responsibility, or do they stifle creative thought?

We are all increasingly subjected to auditing, and alongside that, subject to accountability for our behaviour and actions. Audit cultures pervade in the workplace, our governmental and public institutions as well as academia. However, audit practices themselves have consequences, beneficial and detrimental, that often go unexamined.

This book examines how pervasive practices of accountability are, the polit...