King's College London

This paper provides an overview of the emergence of Critical Perspectives on Accounting and of some of its achievements. The journal was originally created to provide a forum to question some of the notions that were systematically taken for granted in accounting practice and research, to explore the ideological underpinnings of the discipline, and reveal its role in processes of domination and social reproduction. The aim was also to encourage community-building around other important issues such as critical accounting interventions and their potential, or ways to bring out more emancipatory perspectives on accounting. We review three streams with a critical approach to accounting that were developed in the journal over 25 years: promoting a radical reflexivity to challenge mainstream views on accounting, questioning the normative claims of the profession to reveal its role in social reproduction, and highlighting the role of accounting in major socio-political trends.