This chapter questions the purported technical neutrality and the aura of political impartiality surrounding digital technologies arguing that technical neutrality rarely, if ever, exists. Through a theoretical analysis of the blockchain, we argue that socially emancipatory and democratising applications of the blockchain require more than just identifying new users and contexts. For a people-driven, socially orientated civic blockchain to truly work, we need to be vigilant about how we design technological features as these embody contending socio-political visions of our collective futures. We conclude by proposing a research agenda for critically investigating how digital technologies (and blockchain in particular) affect socio-geographical space and ask who should be responsible for imbuing public values in digital technologies; and guaranteeing conditions of fairness, accessibility, democratic control, and accountability.
Iapaolo, Fabio Certomà, ChiaraGiaccaria, Paolo
School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics
Year of publication: 2023Date of RADAR deposit: 2023-05-09
"This is a draft chapter. The final version is available from Edward Elgar: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/a-research-agenda-for-digital-geographies-9781802200591.html. The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only."