Necroaccountability,epidemics and symbolic power: A comparison between London and Naples in 1854

Abstract

This study compares the systems of accounts of death operating in London and Naples during the cholera epidemic of 1854. It adopts a translation in space and time of the Bourdieusian concepts of field, capital and habitus and analyses secondary sources as well as primary sources, mainly in the form of medical reports, bulletins, records and healthcare registers retained in the State Archive of Naples and the National Archives in London. The main finding is that the significance of providing an account of death is a function of the distributions and intensity of the symbolic power in the field of forces where it occurs. Moreover, rendering accounts of death reinforces the initial state of equilibrium or disequilibrium within the field. The article contributes to the emerging streams of research into necroaccountability and into natural disasters in the form of epidemics.

Keywords

Bourdieu cholera England health emergencies Italy natural disaster nineteenth century

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Primary sources

1. [NA (The National Archives, London), UK]: a) (GBH) The General Board of Health: Letter of the President of The General Board of Health to the Right Honourable the Viscount Palmerston, Secretary of the State for the Home Department of Epidemic Cholera in the Metropolis in 1855. b) Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in Relation to the Cholera Epidemic of 1854. c) (MC) Medical Council: Treatment Committee of the Medical Council (1855). Report on the results of the different methods of treatment pursued in epidemic cholera (Metropolitan Report and Report on the Provinces throughout England and Scotland). Report to the General Board of Health. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. d) Poor Law Board: Annual report of the Poor Law Board. Volume 7, 1854. e) The Cholera Inquiry Committee: Report on the cholera outbreak in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, during the autumn of 1854 / presented to the vestry by the Cholera Inquiry Committee, July 1855.

2. [ASN (State Archive of Naples), Italy]: a) King Ferdinand II: Regolamenti sanitarii per lo regno delle Due Sicilie sanzionati da Sua Maestà in conseguenza della legge de' 20 ottobre 1819, Nella Stamperia Cataneo, e de Bonis, nel Reale Albergo de' Poveri. 1820. b) (AB) Bourbon Archive: Real Segreteria di Stato, year 1854: folder 932, page 139; folder 933, page 120; folder 41, page 120. c) (MI) Ministry of the Interior, year 1854: Headquarter, Inventory III, bundle 907. d) (SMH) Supreme Magistracy of Health and General Superintendence, year 1854: bundle 233.

Secondary sources

Ahmad

Connolly

Demirag

(2021) Testing times: Governing a pandemic with numbers. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 34(6): 1362–1375.

Ahn

Wickramasinghe

(2021) Pushing the limits of accountability: Big data analytics containing and controlling COVID-19 in South Korea. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 34(6): 1320–1331.

Ahrens

Ferry

(2021) Accounting and accountability practices in times of crisis: A Foucauldian perspective on the UK government’s response to COVID-19 for England. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 34(4): 1332–1344.

Anessi-Pessina

Barbera

Langella

Manes-Rossi

Sancino

Sicilia

Steccolini

(2020) Reconsidering public budgeting after the COVID-19 outbreak: Key lessons and future challenges. Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management 32(5): 957–965.

Baños Sánchez-Matamoros

López-Manjón

Carrasco-Fenech

Funnell

(2013) Symbolic capital, accounting and caciques in local political life: The charity of Mr Rafael Tenorio (1909–20). Accounting History 18(4): 491–506.

10.

Bourdieu

(1986) The forms of capital. In: Richardson

(ed) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 241–258.

11.

Bourdieu

(1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity.

12.

Bourdieu

(1993) Sociology in Question. London: SAGE.

13.

Bourdieu

(1994) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity.

14.

Bourdieu

(1998) Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

15.

Bourdieu

(2000) Pascalian Meditations. Stanford: Polity.

16.

Bourdieu

(2004) Science of Science and Reflexivity. Cambridge: Polity.

17.

Bourdieu

(2005) The Social Structures of the Economy. Cambridge: Polity.

18.

Bourdieu

(2018) On the state: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1989–1992. Cambridge: Polity.

19.

Bourdieu

Wacquant

(1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

20.

Briggs

(1961) Cholera and society in the nineteenth century. Past and Present 19(1): 76–96.

21.

Caddeo

(2020) Santé publique et parlements au XVIIIe siècle; la limite du champ d’action de la police sanitaire. Analyse de l’arrêt du Conseil d’état du Roidu 14 septembre 1720 ausujet de la maladie contagieuse de la Ville de Marseille. Revista Estudios Jurídicos 20(1): 75–89.

22.

Cardinale

(1995) Alia. In: Nicotra

(ed) Dizionario illustrato dei Comuni Siciliani. Palermo: Comune di Alia.

23.

Carnegie

Napier

(2002) Exploring comparative international accounting history. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 15(5): 689–718.

24.

Collyer

(2018) Envisaging the healthcare sector as a field: Moving from Talcott Parsons to Pierre Bourdieu. Social Theory & Health 16(1): 111–126.

25.

Collyer

Willis

Franklin

Harley

Short

(2015) Healthcare choice: Bourdieu’s capital, habitus and field. Current Sociology 63(5): 685–699.

26.

Collyer

Willis

Lewis

(2017) Gatekeepers in the healthcare sector: Knowledge and Bourdieu’s concept of field. Social Science & Medicine 186(1): 96–103.

27.

Cooper

Lapsley

(2021) Hillsborough: The fight for accountability. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 79(1): 1–26. 10.1016/j.cpa.2019.02.004.

28.

De Renzi

(1854) Intorno al colera di Napoli dell’anno 1854. Relazione della Facoltà medica al Sopritendente generale ed al Supremo magistrato di salute. Napoli: Facoltàmedica.

29.

Di Fiore

(2020) Pandemia 1836: La guerra dei Borbone contro il colera. Italia: UTET.

30.

Durkheim

(1982) The Rules of Sociological Method. Hall, New York: The Free Press.

31.

Evans

(1988) Epidemics and revolutions: Cholera in nineteenth-century Europe. Past and Present 120(1): 123–146.

32.

Forti Messina

(1976) Il colera a Napoli nel 1836–1837. Gli aspetti demografici. Mélanges de L'école Française de Rome 88(1): 319–366.

33.

Gilbert

(2004) Mapping the Victorian Social Body. Albany: State University of New York.

34.

Golsorkhi

Leca

Lounsbury

Ramirez

(2009) Analysing, accounting for and unmasking domination: On our role as scholars of practice, practitioners of social science and public intellectuals. Organization 16(6): 779–797.

35.

Grenfell

(2014) Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts. New York: Routledge.

36.

Grossi

Joyce

(2020) Budgetary responses to a global pandemic: International experiences and lessons for a sustainable future. Journal of Public Budgeting & Financial Management 32(5): 737–744.

37.

Hammond

Cooper

van Staden

(2017) Anglo American corporation and the South African state: A contextual analysis of annual reports 1917–1975. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 30(6): 1399–1423.

38.

Hardy

(1993) Cholera, quarantine and the English preventive system, 1850–1895. Medical History 37(1): 250–269.

39.

Harker

Mahar

Wilkes

(1990) An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu. London: Macmillan.

40.

Hopwood

(1983) On trying to study accounting in the contexts in which it operates. Accounting, Organizations and Society 8(2/3): 287–305.

41.

Huber

Gerhardt

Reilley

(2021) Organising care during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of accounting in German hospitals. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 34(6): 1445–1456.

42.

Ikin

Johns

Hayes

(2012) Field, capital and habitus: An oral history of women in accounting in Australia during World War II. Accounting History 17(2): 175–192.

43.

Imperato

(2015) The Second World Cholera Pandemic (1826–1849) in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with special reference to the towns of San Prisco and Forio d’Ischia. Journal of Community Health 40(6): 1224–1286.

44.

Jackson

(2014) Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth. London: Yale University Press.

45.

Johnson

(2006) The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books Trade Paperbacks (Penguin Group).

46.

Lauzon Clabo

(2008) An ethnography of pain assessment and the role of social context on two postoperative units. Journal of Advanced Nursing 61(5): 531–539.

47.

Leoni

(1990) Il colera nell’Italia Meridionale (1836–1837). Roma: Editrice Apes.

48.

Leoni

Lai

Stacchezzini

Steccolini

Brammer

Linnenluecke

Demirag

(2021a) Accounting, management and accountability in times of crisis: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 34(6): 1305–1319.

49.

Leoni

Lai

Stacchezzini

Steccolini

Brammer

Linnenluecke

Demirag

(2021b) The pervasive role of accounting and accountability during the COVID-19 emergency. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 35(1): 1–19.

50.

Macve

Hoskin

(1994) Writing, examining, disciplining: The genesis of accounting's modern power . In: Hopwood

Miller

(eds) Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice. Cambridge: UK, Cambridge University Press, pp. 67–97.

51.

Malsch

Gendron

Grazzini

(2011) Investigating interdisciplinary translations: The influence of Pierre Bourdieu on accounting literature. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 24(2): 194–228.

52.

Manetti

Bellucci

Bagnoli

(2017) The management of the plague in Florence at the beginning of the Renaissance: The role of the partnership between the Republic and the Confraternita of Misericordia. Accounting History 22(4): 510–529.

53.

McLean

(2005) Public Health and Politics in the Age of Reform: Cholera, the State and the Royal Navy in Victorian Britain. Regno Unito: I.B. Tauris.

54.

Migliori

Di Cimbrini

Consorti

(2019) Who is the spokesperson for whom? Intendants, budgets and action at a distance in the Kingdom of Naples during the French decade (1806–1815). Accounting History 24(4): 540–561.

55.

Mitchell

Nørreklit

Cinquini

Koeppe

Magnacca

Mauro

Jakobsen

Korhonen

Laine

Liboriussen

(2021) Evaluating performance management of COVID-19 reality in three European countries: A pragmatic constructivist study. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 34(6): 1345–1361.

56.

Moerman

van der Laan

(2022) Accounting for and accounts of death: Past, present and future possibilities. Accounting History 27(1): 6–23.

57.

Moore

(2008) Capital. In: Grenfell

(ed) Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts. Durham: Acumen, pp. 101–117.

58.

Neu

(2006) Accounting for public space. Accounting, Organizations and Society 31(4–5): 391–414.

59.

Neu

Heincke

(2004) The subaltern speaks: Financial relations and the limits of governmentality. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 15(1): 179–206.

60.

Neu

Leiser

Ocampo

(2008) Diffusing financial practices in Latin American higher education: Understanding the intersection between global influence and the local context. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 21(1): 49–77.

61.

Neu

Ocampo

(2007) Doing missionary work: The World Bank and the diffusion of financial practices. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 18(3): 363–389.

62.

Neu

Ocampo

Graham

Heincke

(2006) Informing technologies and the World Bank. Accounting, Organizations and Society 31(7): 635–662.

63.

Paneth

Vinten-Johansen

Brody

Rip

(1998) A rivalry of foulness: Official and unofficial investigations of the London cholera epidemic of 1854. American Journal of Public Health 88(1): 1545–1553.

64.

Perkiss

Moerman

(2020) Hurricane Katrina: Exploring justice and fairness as a sociology of common good(s). Critical Perspectives on Accounting 67–68: 102022.

65.

Pitrè

(1884) Il colera nelle credenze popolari d’Italia. Napoli: Archivio per lo Studio delle Tradizioni Popolari.

66.

Pollitzer

(1954) Cholera studies. History of the disease. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 10(3): 421–461.

67.

Pollitzer

Swaroop

Burrows

(1959) Cholera. Monograph Series of the World Health Organization 58(43): 1001–1019.

68.

Rahaman

Everett

Neu

(2007) Accounting and the move to privatise water services in Africa. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 20(5): 637–670.

69.

Rosenberg

(1962) The Cholera Year. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

70.

Sabbatani

Piro

(1998) Il cholera morbus nel Comune di Bologna nel 1886 [The cholera morbus in Bologna in 1886]. Le Infezioni in Medicina 4(1): 233–248.

71.

Sargiacomo

(2015) Earthquakes, exceptional government and extraordinary accounting. Accounting, Organisations and Society 42(1): 67–89.

72.

Sargiacomo

Ianni

Everett

(2014) Accounting for suffering: Calculative practices in the field of disaster relief. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 25(7): 652–669.

73.

Sargiacomo

Servalli

Carnegie

(2012) Accounting for killing: Accountability for death. Accounting History 17(3–4): 393–413.

74.

Sargiacomo

Servalli

Potito

D’Andreamatteo

Gitto

(2021) Accounting for natural disasters from a historical perspective: A literature review and research agenda. Accounting History 26(2): 179–204.

75.

Scambler

Newton

(2011) Capital transactions, disruptions and the emergence of personal capital in a lifeworld under attack. Social Theory & Health 9: 130–146.

76.

Schirato

Roberts

(2020) Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.

77.

Snow

(1855) On the Mode of Communication of Cholera. 2nd ed. London: John Churchill.

78.

Snowden

(1995) Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884–1911. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

79.

Thomas

(2015) Cholera: The Victorian Plague. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books Limited.

80.

Wacquant

(1992) Toward a social praxeology. In: Wacquant

Bourdieu

(eds) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1–59.

81.

Walker

(2014) Drought, resettlement and accounting. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 25(7): 604–619.

82.

Webb

Schirato

Danaher

(2002) Understanding Bourdieu. California: USA: SAGE Publishing.

83.

Whyte

(1854) Cholera in Naples. The Lancet 64(1618): 200–202.

84.

Winterton

(1980) The Soho cholera epidemic 1854. History of Medicine 8(2): 11–20.