Anticipating Blockchain: Identity, Power and DLT

“区块链”或“分布式账本技术”（DLT）以去中心化的虚拟货币比特币而闻名。但DLT现在正在更多的环境中实验性地采用：政府和活动家以及商业。我建议结合定性和定量方法，调查选定的新兴非商业或准商业DLT项目以及相关的话语和实践。“预期b区块链”指的是人们普遍认为DLT将很快产生重大的社会、经济和政治影响。许多人声称，它具有通过分散的点对点结构颠覆权力等级的破坏性潜力（Tapscott 2016;Economist 2016）。怀疑论者认为，它无法解决长期存在的治理和问责问题（Lehdonvirta 2016）。比特币本身与暗网和犯罪有着不可磨灭的联系，但也日益成为主流，被主要交易员和监管机构所接受。拥抱其他DLT应用的参与者现在包括倡导、活动家和创意/文化组织和网络，以及国家和联合国。联合国紧急项目ID2020提议到2030年为每个人类儿童分配一个“自主”的生物识别数字身份，使用DLT来控制数据。在这里，期待与未来主义者的希望和恐惧混合在一起。在福利支付、医疗记录、表演权和从农场到餐桌的食物链等领域，其他新兴项目寻求透明度、效率和不受中央集权影响的好处，但如果它们成功了，它们的实际影响很可能是无法预料的。该项目将评估DLT在扩大数字参与、加强民主、发展和人权方面的潜力。批判社会科学在挖掘围绕区块链展开的意识形态假设，预测其对边缘群体的价值，以及以透明度和大数据的名义将其用作监视和控制无力者的武器方面发挥着至关重要的作用。探索授权和控制之间的这些矛盾趋势，本研究将采用民族志的调查模式，整合定量和定性方法，以实现对区块链工作的认识论，本体论和人类背景的动态分析。我的目标是设计一个可推广的框架，以评估这些项目对边缘化和非商业群体的价值，借鉴我以前与难民和OU/CReSC文化价值项目的工作。我对DLT的兴趣是由一项邀请引发的（基于我对年轻叙利亚难民数字连接的研究），为联合国ID2020峰会（2016年5月，纽约）的小组讨论做出贡献。ID2020建议使用DLT提供包括出生登记在内的普遍法律身份（联合国可持续发展目标16.9）。我之前的研究提醒我，数字连接对弱势群体的好处是与监视和镇压的风险相匹配的。DLT很可能也不例外。需要进行研究，使用创新的、混合的、文化敏感的方法，审慎地评估其潜在影响。ID2020催生了我工作中非常感兴趣的其他DLT项目。rcuk资助的数字经济新经济模型（NEMODE）提出了一个名为“无身份数字身份”（Di4i）的项目，为英国、希腊和肯尼亚的无家可归者、前罪犯、移民和难民开发“在野生环境中”的DLT身份解决方案，并对工作和养老金部的合作伙伴GovCoin进行了一项研究，该研究正在试验DLT用于福利支付。一个名为“重新启动信任网络”的设计工作室正在为b区块链用户开发隐私工具。与ID2020一样，这是一个由商业赞助的非营利组织，其宣称的目标是亲社会。这些项目，以及独立出现的DLT计划，都是关键的研究地点。

'Blockchain' or 'distributed ledger technology' (DLT) is best known for the decentralised virtual currency, Bitcoin. But DLT is now being adopted experimentally in ever more contexts: governmental and activist as well as commercial. I propose to investigate selected emergent non-commercial or quasi-commercial DLT projects and the associated discourses and practices, combining qualitative and quantitative methods.'Anticipating Blockchain' refers to the widespread assumption that DLT will soon have major social, economic and political impacts. Many claim it has disruptive potential to subvert power hierarchies via decentralised, peer-to-peer structures (Tapscott 2016;Economist 2016). Sceptics argue that it offers no solution to perennial problems of governance and accountability (Lehdonvirta 2016).Bitcoin itself is indelibly associated with the darknet and crime, but also increasingly mainstream, accepted by major traders and regulators. Actors embracing other DLT applications now include advocacy, activist and creative/cultural organisations and networks, as well as states and the United Nations. The emergent UN project ID2020 proposes to assign a 'self-sovereign' biometric digital identity to every human child by 2030, using DLT to control the data. Here anticipation mixes with both futurist hope and dread. Other emergent projects, in fields such as benefits payments, medical records, performance rights, and farm-to-fork food chains, seek the benefits of transparency, efficiency and freedom from centralised power, but if they succeed, their actual impacts may well be unanticipated.This project will assess the potential of DLT to widen digital participation, strengthen democracy, development and human rights. Critical social science has a vital role to play in unearthing the ideological assumptions surrounding blockchain as it unfolds, anticipating its value for marginalized groups, and its uses as a weapon of surveillance and control against the powerless in the name of transparency and big data.Exploring these contradictory tendencies between empowerment and control, this research will deploy ethnographic modes of inquiry, integrating quantitative and qualitative methods, to achieve a dynamic analysis of the epistemological, ontological and human contexts in which blockchains go to work. I aim to devise a generalizable framework for assessing the value of such projects for marginalised and non-commercial groups, drawing on my previous work with refugees and on OU/CReSC Cultural Value projects.My interest in DLT was sparked by an invitation (based on my research on digital connectivity with young Syrian refugees) to contribute to a panel discussion at the ID2020 Summit at the UN (New York, May 2016). ID2020 proposes to use DLT to provide a universal legal identity including birth registration (UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9). My previous research had alerted to me to the way the benefits of digital connectivity for vulnerable groups are matched by risks of surveillance and Margie Cheesman, January 2017 2 repression. DLT may well be no different. Research is needed to judiciously assess its potential impacts using innovative, mixed, culturally sensitive methods.ID2020 gave birth to other DLT projects of great interest for my work. RCUK-funded New Economic Models in the Digital Economy (NEMODE) propose a project, Digital Identity for the Identityless (Di4i), to develop 'in the wild' DLT identity solutions for homeless people, ex-offenders, migrants and refugees, in UK, Greece and Kenya, and a study on GovCoin, the Department of Work and Pension's partner trialling DLT for benefit payments. Rebooting the Web of Trust, a design workshop, is developing privacy tools for blockchain users. Like ID2020, this is a commercially sponsored non-profit, with proclaimed pro-social aims. These projects, as well as independently emerging DLT initiatives, are key research sites.