ABSTRACT
The present work draws on Foucault’s concept of governmentality to investigate how accounting works in different organizations in relation to the discourses that pervade them. To achieve this aim, the chapter analyzes the role of accounting in two organizations located in the south of Spain in the second half of the 18th century: the New Settlements of Sierra Morena and Andalucia (NSs) and the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville (RTFS). The period studied is remarkable because it was the apogee of the Enlightenment in Spain. From the standpoint of government, this period facilitated a new way to manage populations. The article concludes that the reticulation of space is an essential apparatus to exert action at a distance and that rules are a type of governmental technology. Most notably, it is contended that accounting is a practice for the mastery of the population, independent of the discourse which informs the functioning of the institution.
