Infrastructural Grind: Introducing Blockchain Technology in the Shipping Domain

Karim Jabbar, Pernille Bjørn

    28 Citationer (Scopus)

    Abstract

    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.
    OriginalsprogEngelsk
    TitelProceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork : GROUP '18
    ForlagAssociation for Computing Machinery
    Publikationsdato7 jan. 2018
    Sider297-308
    ISBN (Trykt)978-1-4503-5562-9
    DOI
    StatusUdgivet - 7 jan. 2018
    Begivenhed2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork, GROUP 2018 - Sanibel Island, USA
    Varighed: 7 jan. 201810 jan. 2018

    Konference

    Konference2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork, GROUP 2018
    Land/OmrådeUSA
    BySanibel Island
    Periode07/01/201810/01/2018
    SponsorACM SIGCHI

    Citationsformater