Narratives of exploitation and resistance: European immigration, business, and accounting on Ibicaba farm in the 19th century
研究了19世纪巴西伊比卡巴农场如何通过会计系统对欧洲移民劳工实施经济强制，以及移民的反叙事如何挑战这种权力关系，对理解现代移民劳工治理有启示。
This paper examines how business practices reinforce and continue imperial colonial power relations and how counter-narratives can challenge these practices. Addressing a gap in business historiography, it analyses how ‘free’ European immigrant labour was subject to systemic economic coercion legitimised through accounting. A critical historiographical narrative analyses Thomaz Davatz’s memoirs alongside historical ledgers from Ibicaba farm. The novel lens combines concepts of coloniality of power and counter-accounting, framing accounting as a site of power and resistance. A mechanism of control, the accounting recorded systems of debt and surveillance mirror slavery-era domination. Davatz’s testimony exposes manipulative accounting practices, lack of transparency, and a coercive labour system masked by contracts and numbers; this counter-accounting contests the legitimacy of official representations. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of coloniality, power, and forms of resistance within Latin America. It highlights the importance of transparency and accountability for modern forms of migrant labour governance.