Radical technologies: Blockchain as an organizational movement

PDF
Published: Mar 27, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/homvir.20191
Keywords:
blockchain organizational movement decentralized technologies social contract radicalization cyberpsychology
Maria Koletsi
Post-Doctoral Researcher, Laboratory of Virtual Reality, Internet Research and e-Learning, Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9895-3197
Abstract

The emergence of blockchain technology has created a debate regarding technologies’ socio-cultural symbolism. Prevailing as alternative or complementary to internet technology, blockchain’s decentralized radical architecture reflects organizational change, enhancement of degrees of freedom, for individual identities and communities, new schemes of distributed trust and privacy, transformation of power relations and social reality perception. The current paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate, from an organizational and socio-psychological perspective, discussing the key elements of a socially grounded technology, like any other technological product within the history of humanity. Through an evolutionary lens, blockchain technology is examined as a decentralized grassroots organizational movement at birth, influencing and, at the same time, be influenced, by science, culture, as well as by other aspects of individual and collective networked life, apart from the economy. Social sciences and cyber sciences are in a crossroad where society and technology integrate creating a mixed socio-technological or techno-social reality. Therefore, it is of high importance for them, to address the new epistemological challenges by developing new methodologies and tools, independently from any utopian or dystopian predictions.

Article Details
  • Section
  • Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

· Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

· Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

· Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (preferably in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Agora Technologies [Swiss Lab & Foundation for Digital Democracy]. (2018). Bringing voting systems into the digital age: Agora. Retrieved from https://www.agora.vote
Beck, R., Müller-Bloch, C. (2017). Blockchain as radical innovation: a framework for engaging with distributed ledgers. Paper presented at the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa
Belu, D. S., & Feenberg, A. (2010). Heidegger’s aporetic ontology of technology. Inquiry, 53 (1), https://doi.org/10.1080/00201740903478376
Berners-Lee,T. (2014). We need a Magna Carta for the internet. New Perspectives Quarterly, 31 (3), 39-41. https://doi.org/10.1111/npqu.11475
Bjerk, O. (2015). How is bitcoin money? Theory, Culture & Society, 33 (1), 53-72. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0263276415619015
Blockchain at Berkeley (2019). A student organization focused on blockchain innovation via education, research, design, and consulting. Retrieved from https://blockchain.berkeley.edu
Blockchain Babes (2018). Women of Blockchain: Instead of focusing on how few women there are, let’s focus on the women that there are. Retrieved from https://www.blockchain-babes.com
Blumer, B. (2018, September 26). Blockchain is a movement. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com
Borum, R., (2012). Radicalization into violent extremism I: A review of social science theo-ries. Journal of Strategic Security, 4 (4), 7-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.4.4.1
Castells, M. (2012). Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the internet age. United Kingdom: Polity Press.
Castells, M. (2009). Communication power. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
Castells, M. (2000). The information age: Economy, society and culture, Volume 1: The rise of the network society (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing
CryptoChicks (n.d.). Blockchain and AI community for women. Retrieved from https://cryptochicks.ca.
Davis, S, Elin., L., & Reeher, G. (2002). Click on democracy: The internet’s power to change political apathy into civic action. USA: Westview Press.
Democracy Earth Foundation. (2015). Power in your hands. A borderless peer to peer de-mocracy. For everyone, anywhere. Retrieved from https://www.democracy.earth.
Dodd, N. (2017). The social life of bitcoin. Theory, Culture & Society, 35 (3), 35-56. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0263276417746464
DuVal Smith, A. (1999). Problems of conflict management in virtual communities. In P. Kol-lock & M. Smith (Eds), Communities in cyberspace (pp. 135-166). London: Routledge.
Fresco (n.d.). Blockchain Art Asset Network. Retrieved from https://fresco.work.
Gaggioli, A. (2018). Blockchain technology: Living in a decentralized everything. Cyberpsy-chology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21 (1), 65-66. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2017.29097.csi
Gilber, B. A., & Campbell, J. T. (2015). The geographic origins of radical technological para-digms: A configurational study. Research Policy, 44 (2), 311-327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2014.08.006
Githens-Mazer, J. (2012). The rhetoric and reality: Radicalization and political discourse. International Political Science Review, 0 (0), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0192512112454416
Githens-Mazer, J., & Lambert, R. (2010). Why conventional wisdom on radicalization fails: the persistence of a failed discourse. International Affairs, 86 (4), 889-901. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2010.00918.x
Heidegger. M. (1977). The Question concerning technology, and other essays. New York: Harper & Row Publishers
Herian, R. (2018). The politics of blockchain. Law & Critique, 29 (2), 129-131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-018-9223-1
Klandermans, P. G. (2014). Identity politics and politicized identities: Identity processes and the dynamics of protest. Political Psychology, 35 (1), pp. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12167
Kostakopoulou, D. (2018). Cloud agoras: When blockchain technology meets Arendt’s virtual public spaces. In R. Bauböck (Ed.), Debating transformations of national citizenship (pp. 337-341). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92719-0
Kshetri, N., & Voas, J. (2018). Blockchain-enabled e-voting. IEEE Software, 35 (4), 95-99. https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2018.2801546
LGBT Foundation (2018, June 5). Blockchain with pride: LGBT Foundation and OST announce partnership to launch global LGBT+ ecosystem. Retrieved from https://lgbt-token.org/.
Lotti, L. (2016). Contemporary art, capitalization and the blockchain: On the autonomy and automation of art’s value. Finance & Society, 2 (2), 96-110. https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.v2i2.1724
Lubin, J. [ethereumJoseph]. (2018, December 1). #Blockchain is more than a market. It’s a movement [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/ethereumjoseph/status/1068933986821595137?lang=en.
Magna Carta Libertatum (1215). Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/magna-carta-1215.
Medium (2017, February 22). Bye bye, bank manager: can you trust the blockchain and re-move the middleman? Retrieved from https://toa.life/bye-bye-bank-manager-can-you-trust-the-blockchain-and-remove-the-middleman-6399d896be71.
Oxford Blockchain Network (2016). Learn how blockchain is changing the world. Retrieved from http://oxfordblockchain.net.
Reijers, W., & Coeckelbergh, M. (2018). The blockchain as a narrative technology: Investigat-ing the social ontology and normative configurations of cryptocurrencies. Philosophy & Technology, 31 (1), 103-130. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0239-x
Reijers, W., O'Brolcháin , F., & Haynes, P. (2016). Governance in Blockchain Technologies & Social Contract Theories. Ledger, 1, 134-151. https://doi.org/10.5195/ledger.2016.62
RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub. (2017). The world’s first research centre on the social sci-ence of Blockchain. Retrieved from https://sites.rmit.edu.au.
Roberts, L. D, Smith, L. M., & Pollock, C. M. (2006). Psychological sense of community in vir-tual communities. In S. Dasgupta (ed.), Encyclopedia of virtual communities and technol-ogies (pp. 390-396). Igi-Global.
Rousseau, J. J. (1895). The social contract or principles of political right. Retrieved from http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/utopia/revolution1/rousseau1/rousseau.html.
Schiller, A. L., Breuing, E., & Fritsche, A. (2017, October 26). [Live drawing of Shermin’s talk on ‘Blockchain & the future of the web’ conducted by Riesenspatz] [Infographic]. Re-trieved from https://blockchainhub.net/blog/infographics/future-web-decentralized/.
Swan, M., & De Filippi, P. (2017). Towards a Philosophy of Blockchain. Metaphilosophy, 48. Retrieved from https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01676883.
Swan, M. (2015) Blockchain thinking: The brain as a decentralized autonomous corporation. IEEE Technology & Society Magazine, 34 (4), 41-52. https://doi.org/10.1109/MTS.2015.2494358
The Civil Media Company (2019). Civil: A community-owned journalism network based on transparency and trust. Retrieved from https://civil.co.
United Nations (n.d.). UN Blockchain. Multi-UN agency platform. Retrieved from https://un-blockchain.org.
Velasco, P. R. (2017). Computing ledgers and the political ontology of the blockchain. Metaphilosophy, 48 (5), 712-726.
https://doi.org/10.1111/meta.12274
Voshmgir, S. (2017, September). Blockchain & the future of the internet [Video file]. Re-trieved from https://shermin.net/blockchain-future-of-internet-shermin-voshmgir/.
VoteCoin. (2017). Anonymous cryptodemocracy. Retrieved from https://votecoin.site.
Wunder Art Museum (2018). Blockchain-based digital museum. Retrieved from https://wunder.art/#panelBlock1.
Young, S. (2018). Changing governance models by applying blockchain computing. Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology, 23 (2). Retrieved from https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1056&context=jlt.
Zeilinger, M. (2018). Digital art as ‘monetised graphics’: Enforcing intellectual property on the blockchain. Philosophy & Technology, 31 (1), 15-41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0243-1.
Zwitter, A., & Boisse-Despiaux, M. (2018). Blockchain for humanitarian action and develop-ment aid. Journal of International Humanitarian Action, 3 (16), 3-7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41018-018-0044-5.
Most read articles by the same author(s)