Towards a participatory digital ethnography of blockchain governance

Ellie Rennie, Michael Zargham, Joshua Tan, Luke Miller (), Jonathan Abbott, Kelsie Nabben and Primavera de Filippi ()
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Ellie Rennie: RMIT University - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University
Michael Zargham: Vienna University of Economics and Business - WU - Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien [Austria]
Joshua Tan: Stanford University, University of Oxford
Kelsie Nabben: RMIT University - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University
Primavera de Filippi: Harvard University, CERSA - Centre d'Études et de Recherches de Sciences Administratives et Politiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Institut Cujas - Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas

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Abstract: Blockchain governance occurs through a combination of social and technical activities, involving smart contracts, deliberation within a group, and voting. These processes are significant as they demonstrate how governance of distributed infrastructures is evolving. While typologies of blockchain governance can be constructed by gathering on-chain interactions and formal rules, other aspects are more difficult to observe, including governance interactions occurring inside discussion forums. In this paper we discuss a participatory digital ethnography technique, whereby participants and researchers use a bespoke bot to identify governance interactions occurring within project forums (on Discord). The technique is designed to be used in conjunction with analysis of software for the purpose of mapping and understanding the 'governance surface' of different protocols. We describe our tools and methods for understanding automated futures through a case study of the SourceCred community, an organization using, developing and maintaining open source software called SourceCred. The SourceCred codebase is also used by other decentralised communities for various organisational functions, including reputation and compensation.

Keywords: Digital ethnography; Blockchain governance; Participatory methodologies; Automation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pay
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03882048v1
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Published in Qualitative Inquiry, 2022, 28 (7), pp.837-847. ⟨10.1177/10778004221097056⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03882048

DOI: 10.1177/10778004221097056

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