From the impossibility of acting at a distance: Accounting quantification and territorialization in the colonial prisons of Guyana (1852-1867).

Summary This article is in line with the work of Asdal (2011), on the limits of accounting to effective action at a distance. By combining the notions of accounting inscription and territorialization, we show how factors of ineffectiveness of action at a distance can emerge from daily quantification practices. Using the historical case of the introduction of an accounting system in the prisons of Guyana in the 19th century, we detail a set of choices and effects faced by the actors in charge of accounting. We show how combinations of certain choices and effects reduce the effectiveness of remote action. Accounting procedures can encourage the perpetuation of pre-existing practices that they were supposed to modify. The processes of monetary valuation and data aggregation, by isolating quantified objects from other causal relationships, generate unexpected effects compared to those intended.