Accounting Practices as Situated Knowing: Dilemmas and Dynamics in Institutional Categorization

Abstract

This article analyses the dynamics of the use of institutional categories in institutional encounters. The focus is on documenting how categories are invoked to index what is relevant to situated knowing in interactional sequences where there is a need to bridge the gap between action and expectation. This general problem has been studied in the context of interactions between job applicants and vocational guidance officers in a public employment agency. Institutional categories are inference-rich, and they work as flexible tools that allow participants to recontextualize and negotiate the issues at stake. In this sense, categories serve as constitutive tools that can be crafted to fit into a broad range of circumstances. However, in order to produce a relevant account, participants’ ways of reasoning need to fit into the institutionally specific traditions of argumentation and the practical outcomes which need to be produced. In this sense, the focus on accounting practices is illuminating when attempting to understand the situated knowing that maintains institutional practices.