Addressing Theoretical Critiques
Once again digging into my thesis in bite-size chunks!
While I do utilize concepts of Marx in my analysis and use of actor-network theory, I am actively trying to avoid the label of “historical materialism”. While I note that some comparisons to past projects and concepts are of course necessary to give both structure and a sense of theoretical lineage, I am also attempting to create an analytical distance from a technological determinist approach, as well as an acknowledgement that the blockchain space is a rapidly emerging and evolving one. The space is in some ways transient and ephemeral, and in other ways has a rich tapestry of recorded history — much of it recorded, of course, in relatively immutable blockchains themselves.
The choice to move away from historical materialism is also a move away from Marx’s teleological proposal of the inevitable breakdown of capitalism and the development of communism resulting from technological mastery (Marx 1867). That is not to say that this may not be an eventual outcome, but instead to suggest that there are multiple, complex possibilities for outcomes, and that none of them are inevitable. This is the main reason for deploying the corrective of Srnicek’s view that a utopian vision is required to direct incremental change through the use of technological advancements and planning (Srnicek and Williams 2016).
Another note on my use of Marx is through David Harvey’s lectures, where he discusses the historical use of social theory, and how it shifts over time, extrapolating from one of Marx’s prefaces within Capital (Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey 2010). Harvey describes this by saying “bourgeois theory understood the world in a certain way, and then history moved on to make that theoretical formulation redundant, and that therefore ideas had to change as circumstances change, or ideas had to be reconfigured” (Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey 2010: 52 minutes). That is why I deploy historical social theory throughout, particularly theories that would have been considered strictly historically materialist, while also distancing myself and this research from the traditional proposed outcomes of those theories — namely that there is a single trajectory that can be extrapolated from a historical materialist analysis alone. The world has changed, and is in the midst of another large technological change that is highly complex and uncertain in its outcomes.
John Law and John Urry (2004) suggest that there are a number of ways that theoretical multiplicity can be interpreted, though the most important realization coming from the idea of multiplicity, ontological politics and reality as enactments is that methodology also involves performativity, and has an influence on the realities that it enacts and produces (397). This is to suggest that using different methods may report different findings, but that each of these may be equally true and valid, but simply unlike each other (ibid). Annmarie Mol adopts a similar perspective in her study of atherosclerosis in a Dutch hospital in The Body Multiple (Mol 2002). In some ways this is not a new idea, as sociologists have often studied social issues from a variety of perspectives and have reached different, though sometimes complementary, conclusions based on their theories and methodologies. What is new is that with the acceptance of the idea that reality is multiple and that methodology plays a role in both studying and creating the social must come the acceptance that sociology takes a political stance in its treatment and probing of issues (Law and Urry 2004). In practice, this negates the impartiality of methods, because by researching and coming to conclusions about anything is to also enact and actively create reality (ibid). In this way, methods need to be understood to be political given their role in creating reality.
Given that I also use several Marxist writings, and the writings of Karl Marx himself while also drawing from aspects of multiplicity, this aligns with previous work pushing for the use of Marx as both an analytical and political tool (Cleaver 1979). Further, because of the acknowledgement of aspects of reflexivity in ethnography, this approach is evident throughout the research process.
The flattening effect of Actor-Network Theory, the allegation that it reduces all actors to undifferentiated and equally powerful or powerless players, is a critique that should also be acknowledged. While this is indeed a legitimate critique of both ANT as a social theory as well as the methods associated, the benefits of using ANT as a social theory in an exploratory study need not be as fully concerned with the flattening effect as more established studies might be. While the actants and associations between them may be explored as generally equal in their association and power structure within networks, the general exploration and description of these actants is actually more important than the negotiation of power dynamics between them which can be explored in further expansions of social theory within the blockchain space. The important aspect here in a descriptive exploratory study is the identification and description of the actants and their relationships, while the power dynamics that exists within the network and between actants can be more fully explored using alternative methods and theories in follow up research.
References from this section:
Cleaver, Harry. 1979. Reading Capital Politically. Brighton, Sussex: The Harvester Press Limited.
Law, John and John Urry. 2004. “Enacting the social”. Economy and Society 33(3):390–410.
Marx, Karl. [1867] 1959. Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy. Friedrich Engels ed. Serge L. Levitsky, condensed. Reprint, Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Company.
Mol, Annemarie. 2002. the body multiple: ontology in medical practice. London, UK: Duke University Press.
Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey. 2010. “Class 01 Reading Marx’s Capital Vol I with David Harvey.” Youtube Website. Retrieved February 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBazR59SZXk).
Srnicek, Nick and Alex Williams. 2016. Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work. Brooklyn, NY: Verso.
My thesis in its entirety, of which this is a snippet, is available in full at: https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/24924
