It has been said that accounting
creates “objectivity” by its calculative practices. With the assistance of the
concept of “space”, this paper digs deeper into the process of how this
“objectivity” is created within accounting. It is shown through which processes
accounting replaces “place” with “placelessness”/”space” as an accounting
resource and how accounting thus loses its rootedness in local and becomes
representative of the global. We find four kinds of placelessness: electronic,
existential, aesthetic, and placeful. The processes found are those through numbers, capital and visual space;
these processes are not mutually exclusive. Paradoxically, in order to reach
objectivity and generality outside specificities, a certain extent of
specificity rooted in certain place is needed; for example, visuality generates
objectivity but requires a visual place for itself. It is also found that
“space” and “objectivity” tie in with concepts such as “generality” and “truth”
which are seen as the determinant forces of our current society, producing a
view on this society according to which “whatever the arbitrarily produced numbers regarding capital accumulation seem to visually
show, implies the truth”. Thus accounting leads us to the reasons for why our
society exists as it does and which kinds of “truths” are appreciated within it.