Accounting for the cartel
基于对墨西哥卡特尔活动相关人员的访谈和新闻报道，研究会计如何嵌入卡特尔活动，通过框架化和常规化划定合法与非法的边界，并揭示模仿、混合等实践如何影响暴力表征与经济秩序。
While research on accounting in cartel contexts has largely focused on money laundering, limited attention has been given to how accounting both shapes and is shaped by broader organisational and symbolic dimensions. Informed by postcolonial theory, this study critically examines the role of accounting in structuring practices and shaping representations of violence within cartel activities. Drawing on interviews with individuals exposed to cartel activity in Mexico, as well as a wide range of news articles, the analysis reveals that accounting is systematically embedded in cartel activities, delineating the boundaries between legitimacy and illegality through framing and routinising. The findings also show that mimicry is used to adopt and subvert dominant organisational forms, while the blending of formal accounting language and local practices gives rise to hybridity, complicating conventional interpretations of violence and economic order. Adopting a postcolonial lens deepens the understanding of accounting in illicit settings, highlighting its central role in shaping contested identities and selectively determining the visibility or invisibility of violence.