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Between Two Sides of a Coin : Analyzing Bitcoin within anthropologies of money

Publication at Faculty of Social Sciences |
2018

Abstract

In this chapter, I aimed to set Bitcoin into a broader discussion of anthropologies of money and show how it resonates with certain anthropological classifications. I focused on how Bitcoin often transcend certain categories and frequently ends up in the uncategorized space of betwixt and between; whether it comes between state and its subjects, invades relations of individuals and communities, oscillates between the abstract notions of general and particular purpose or questions the distinction between society and technology.

This ambivalent space where something is "no longer classified and not yet classified [serves as a] realm of pure possibility whence novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise." (Turner 1967, 96-97, emphasis added)