Treading on a Tightrope: Balancing the Roles of an Academic Activist

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on an accounting scholar’s role(s) during academic-activist collaboration. Theoretically, I draw on a typology of researcher roles in public policy to offer an alternative to the conceptualization of the ‘intellectual’ that has thus far prevailed in research on accounting scholars’ interventions into political issues. In empirical terms, I will recount and analyze my experiences from the construction and dissemination of a counter account, a report on the present state and future prospects of fur farming in Finland, commissioned by a non-governmental organization focusing on animal rights. The study contributes both theoretically and empirically to the critical literature on accounting interventions as well as to the social and environmental accounting research on scholarly counter accounts. I also hope the study will benefit our common collective by encouraging accounting scholars to intervene in policy debates involving animals.