Infrastructural Grind: Introducing Blockchain Technology in the Shipping Domain
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review
Standard
Infrastructural Grind : Introducing Blockchain Technology in the Shipping Domain. / Jabbar, Karim; Bjørn, Pernille.
Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork: GROUP '18. Association for Computing Machinery, 2018. p. 297-308.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - GEN
T1 - Infrastructural Grind
T2 - 2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork, GROUP 2018
AU - Jabbar, Karim
AU - Bjørn, Pernille
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - In this paper, we present ethnographic data unpacking threedifferent accounts of how Blockchain technology getsintroduced into the shipping domain. The resultsdemonstrate that the shipping industry is based upon aninformation infrastructure with a socio-technical kernelcomprising transaction practices between shippers, freightforwarders, ports, shipping lines, and other actors in theshipping industry. These practices are based uponstandards, which have evolved over time and are embeddedwithin the installed base of the infrastructure. We find thatbecause of the inertia of the shipping infrastructure,Blockchain technology cannot be seamlessly introduceddirectly into the shipping domain. Instead, we introduceInfrastructural Grind as the activity by which domains (e.g.shipping) intersect with new technological infrastructures(e.g. Blockchain). Infrastructural grind occurs as a result ofvarious infrastructuring activities taking place at differentintersections between the two infrastructures, and isconstituted of the sum of these manifestations. We proposethat infrastructural grind is enacted through activitiesexpressing elements of consolidation, permeability, andvelocity.
AB - In this paper, we present ethnographic data unpacking threedifferent accounts of how Blockchain technology getsintroduced into the shipping domain. The resultsdemonstrate that the shipping industry is based upon aninformation infrastructure with a socio-technical kernelcomprising transaction practices between shippers, freightforwarders, ports, shipping lines, and other actors in theshipping industry. These practices are based uponstandards, which have evolved over time and are embeddedwithin the installed base of the infrastructure. We find thatbecause of the inertia of the shipping infrastructure,Blockchain technology cannot be seamlessly introduceddirectly into the shipping domain. Instead, we introduceInfrastructural Grind as the activity by which domains (e.g.shipping) intersect with new technological infrastructures(e.g. Blockchain). Infrastructural grind occurs as a result ofvarious infrastructuring activities taking place at differentintersections between the two infrastructures, and isconstituted of the sum of these manifestations. We proposethat infrastructural grind is enacted through activitiesexpressing elements of consolidation, permeability, andvelocity.
U2 - 10.1145/3148330.3148345
DO - 10.1145/3148330.3148345
M3 - Article in proceedings
SN - 978-1-4503-5562-9
SP - 297
EP - 308
BT - Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 7 January 2018 through 10 January 2018
ER -
ID: 221758602