Designing information infrastructures in solidarity economy: formation of shared imaginaries in solidarity cryptocurrencies

• Autor(a) principal: Sanches, Bruno Henrique
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10438/31793
• topic: Cryptocurrency; Design; Solidarity economy; Community currency; Criptomoeda; Economia solidária; Moeda social; Administração de empresas; Bitcoin; Solidariedade - Aspectos econômicos; Moeda comunitária; Blockchains (Base de dados)

This thesis seeks to understand how we can cooperatively design information infrastructures under the principles of solidarity economy. The focus lies on solidarity cryptocurrency design, a recent phenomenon that connects the social perspective of community currencies with the technological architecture of the cryptocurrencies. Solidarity cryptocurrency is a recent phenomenon that connects the social perspective of community currencies with the technological architecture of the cryptocurrencies. By dealing with logics coming from different universes, the social perspective of community currencies with the technological architecture of the cryptocurrencies, designing a solidarity cryptocurrency is about making possible the connection between these two distinct worlds. To investigate the designing of solidarity cryptocurrency, this thesis develops an alternative view of the cryptocurrency design that emerges from a Solidarity Economy experience, showing how the process of designing a solidarity cryptocurrency holds a dialogic tension between two ways of design. My conceptual background integrated elements of two theoretical traditions. First, the tecnologia social, a Latin American concept that sees the development of technologies for social transformation built and/or appropriated by the population affected by them. Second, the concept of infrastructuring, which denotes a multi-relational and processual perspective of information infrastructures design. I adopt a design ethnography strategy to examine the design of a solidarity cryptocurrency, an infrastructure that adapts the digital payment platform held by the solidarity organization Instituto E-Dinheiro Brasil into a blockchain platform. The results reveal the importance of connecting local resources and knowledge through developing located accountability by experts, direct community participation, and integrating local technologies. We unveil how process of reconfiguration of artefacts, imaginaries and social practices unfold towards a solidary economy landscape.