Anticipating Blockchain: Identity, Power and DLT

“区块链”或“分布式账本技术”(DLT)最为人所知的是去中心化的虚拟货币比特币。但DLT现在正在更多的背景下被实验性地采用：政府、活动家以及商业。我建议采用定性和定量相结合的方法，调查选定的非商业性或准商业性DLT项目以及相关的论述和实践。“预测区块链”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，它具有颠覆权力等级制度的潜力，可以通过分散的、点对点的结构(Tapscott 2016；《经济学人》2016)。持怀疑态度的人认为，比特币不能解决长期存在的治理和问责问题(Lehdonvirta 2016)。比特币本身与黑暗网络和犯罪联系在一起，但也越来越成为主流，被主要交易商和监管机构接受。现在接受其他DLT应用的行为者包括倡导、积极分子和创意/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，使用DLT控制数据，为每个人类儿童分配一个“自我主权”的生物识别数字身份。在这里，期待与未来主义者的希望和恐惧交织在一起。在福利支付、医疗记录、表演权和从农场到餐桌的食品连锁店等领域，其他新兴项目寻求透明、高效和不受中央集权影响的好处，但如果它们成功，其实际影响很可能是意想不到的。该项目将评估DLT扩大数字参与、加强民主、发展和人权的潜力。在区块链展开的过程中，批判性社会科学在揭示区块链周围的意识形态假设方面发挥着至关重要的作用，预计区块链对边缘群体的价值，以及它作为一种武器，以透明和大数据的名义对无权者进行监督和控制。探索授权和控制之间的这些矛盾趋势，这项研究将采用民族志调查模式，结合定量和定性方法，实现对区块链工作的认识论、本体论和人文学背景的动态分析。我的目标是根据我之前对难民和OU/Cresc文化价值项目的工作，为被边缘化和非商业群体设计一个评估此类项目价值的通用框架。我对DLT的兴趣是由一次邀请(基于我对与叙利亚年轻难民的数字连接的研究)在联合国ID2020峰会(纽约，2016年5月)的小组讨论中引发的。ID2020提议使用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，数字连接给弱势群体带来的好处与监控和玛吉·齐斯曼(Margie Cheesman)的风险相匹配，2017年1月2日。DLT可能也不会有什么不同。需要进行研究，以明智地使用创新的、混合的、文化敏感的方法来评估其潜在影响。ID2020催生了其他对我的工作非常感兴趣的DLT项目。RCUK资助的数字经济中的新经济模型(NEMODE)提出了一个项目--无身份人数字身份(Di4i)，旨在为英国、希腊和肯尼亚的无家可归者、有前科的人、移民和难民开发DLT身份识别解决方案，以及一项关于GovCoin的研究，GovCoin是工作和养老金部门的合作伙伴，正在试验DLT的福利支付。重新启动信任网是一个设计研讨会，正在为区块链用户开发隐私工具。像ID2020一样，这是一个商业赞助的非营利性组织，宣布的目标是亲社会。这些项目，以及独立出现的DLT倡议，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.