Accounting for African migrants in Naples, Italy

The increasing interest in international migration and the African dimensions of that migration in Europe has received considerable attention by scholars recently. Accounting has been largely absent from contributing to that research. In this article, I address how the limits of a managerialist social accounting of African migrants in Naples, Italy might offer useful insight into the social and economic dimensions of irregular African migrants working in the city's underground economy. To do this, I employed the methods of anthropology and ethnographic study. In a case study of a social audit introduced by a public transit company to control petty crime, I examine how that audit produced an excess knowledge about African migrants that extended beyond it procedural purpose. Beyond the limits of its structure it revealed significant knowledge about the informal economies of remittances sent to Africa.