The State in pursuit of thanatopolitics: Accounting and the citizenry

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to contribute to the research literature on the role of accounting in the Holocaust. This study provides a novel but robust theoretical structure to help us understand the role that accounting played in the death of over 6 million people. It draws on the work of Giorgio Agamben (1995, 2002, 2005, 2011, 2015) and, to a lesser extent, Michel Foucault (1978, 2003, 2008), presented in the form of a thanatopolitical lens from which to view the successive losses of life of the Jews of Nazi Germany. Particular focus is on the financial depravation of the Jews, or the loss of their financial life, enacted through accounting. This structure can be used to explore other events, both historically and of the present. The study also aims to bring the theorising of Agamben to the accounting literature.