Ruwatan sukerto: Liberation of the slave's suffering fair value measurement

This study critiques the application of fair value in a non-Western context that ignores the transcendent dimensions spiritual, cultural, and ecological of assets, thereby causing sukerto—an epistemic crisis and inner suffering—for local accountants who are caught between global standards and cultural values. The research method was conducted from March to July 2025 via a hermeneutic approach by analyzing Javanese cultural texts, particularly the ruwatan ritual, accounting literature, and IFRS standards, through symbolic interpretation and critical analysis. The results of this study show that fair value creates noise and suffering, similar to sukerto. Inspired by the ruwatan ritual, which purifies without destruction, an innovative solution is offered: the alignment of numbers and feelings in accounting by presenting four-dimensional financial reports that present historical cost and fair value side by side. This research contributes practical solutions while enriching accounting discourse from a local cultural perspective, offering a path to the decolonization of knowledge. The novelty of this research is that it fills this gap by documenting the embodied experience of non-Western accountants as subjects of knowledge and offering ruwatan as an epistemological framework and emancipatory solution, not merely a metaphor for anticipating the impact of fair value accounting.