Frail hope and new frontiers

IF 1.5 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology Today Pub Date : 2023-07-31 DOI:10.1111/1467-8322.12823

Alex Preda, Julie Valk, Ruowen Xu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This guest editorial takes as its starting point the 2021 guest editorial in ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY on the anthropology of blockchain written by Kosmarski and Gordiychuk, in which they discussed the possibilities of blockchain in terms of a ‘frail hope of novel, weird, grassroots, decentralized forms of social life’. They also argued that blockchain brought us to ‘new frontiers’ in politics, economics, capital, votes and subjective feelings. Two years later, in this 2023 guest editorial, the authors take stock of where blockchain technology stands concerning these ‘frail hopes’ and ‘new frontiers’. They distinguish between three articulations of blockchain imaginaries: blockchain-as-discourse, blockchain-as-sociotechnical assemblage and blockchain-as-spectacle. Then, they explore what blockchain means for capital, and whether we are headed towards mass adoption of blockchain technology, concluding that, for now, they see primarily institutional adoption. The authors also discern parallel institutional structures, with traditional finance on one side and blockchain-enabled crypto finance on the other, and they examine the regulated future of crypto assets.

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微弱的希望和新的边界

这篇客座社论以Kosmarski和Gordiychuk撰写的2021年《今日人类学》关于区块链人类学的客座社论为起点，他们从“对新颖、怪异、基层、分散的社会生活形式的微弱希望”的角度讨论了区块链的可能性。他们还认为，区块链将我们带到了政治、经济、资本、投票和主观感受的“新前沿”。两年后，在这篇2023年的客座社论中，作者评估了区块链技术在这些“脆弱的希望”和“新领域”方面的地位。他们区分了区块链想象的三种表达方式:区块链作为话语、区块链作为社会技术组合和区块链作为景观。然后，他们探讨了区块链对资本的意义，以及我们是否正朝着大规模采用区块链技术的方向发展，得出的结论是，目前，他们主要看到的是机构采用。作者还发现了平行的制度结构，一边是传统金融，另一边是支持区块链的加密金融，他们研究了加密资产的受监管未来。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Anthropology Today ANTHROPOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.30

自引率

7.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： Anthropology Today is a bimonthly publication which aims to provide a forum for the application of anthropological analysis to public and topical issues, while reflecting the breadth of interests within the discipline of anthropology. It is also committed to promoting debate at the interface between anthropology and areas of applied knowledge such as education, medicine, development etc. as well as that between anthropology and other academic disciplines. Anthropology Today encourages submissions on a wide range of topics, consistent with these aims. Anthropology Today is an international journal both in the scope of issues it covers and in the sources it draws from.