The aim of this diploma thesis is to study how nonhuman agents are introduced and employed as a replacement for social reproduction by analyzing the environment and types of exchange practiced in the countryside of post-socialist Russia. The farm where my fieldwork took place exhibits many types of exchange, among which cryptocurrencies, seen as a socio- material algorithm, are used for the redistribution of essential goods and/or favors in a method similar to those used in former socialist and post-socialist economies. Drawing from the anthropological discussion on gift-commodity logic in the area, I look at cryptocurrencies as a hybrid - they hold the qualities of a gift (authority, name) and could be used to speculate with on the crypto stock-exchange (commodity). Key words: alternative economies, post-socialism, cryptocurrencies, algorithms, sociomateriality
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:387983 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Vargolskaia, Virginia |
| Contributors | Stöckelová, Tereza, Abu Ghosh, Yasar |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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