Self-sovereignty
As a technology that can be traced back to the late 1990s in its structural fundamentals, ‘blockchain’ came into mainstream public discourse as of 2017. Previously discussed in the fringes of the technology-savvy circles in the developed regions of the West and Northeast Asia with the appellation of ‘distributed ledger technology’ (which indeed is a description arguably more illustrative of its actual form of use), blockchain has now became a global phenomenon that is growingly capturing a notable share of the public imagination and academic discourse in the realm of technology.
One of the ways in which this technology has re-ignited debates has been through the increased discourses on ‘digital identity’ and ‘self-sovereignty’. The adoption of platforms such as Ethereum has put cyber-libertarian discourse at the forefront of debates surrounding both digital identity and self-sovereignty — all debated within the discursive realm of blockchain technologies. Indeed, there is little agreement as to what is actually meant by ‘self-sovereign identities’ — especially in stark comparison to the major consensus over the concept of ‘blockchain’.
Self-sovereign identity debates are centred around the notion that we all are the makers of our own identity, online and offline. As we do not rely on any centralised authority for our finances across Ethereum, self-sovereign identity systems seem as a natural way to express one-self within that platform as well.
Digital Identity
According to the Anthony Elliot “…identity is something profoundly individual, subjective, personal and private” and “the cult of identity has become increasingly central to the organization of modern societies” (2017). What is meant by the ‘cult of identity’ in this case can be read as a celebration (or normalisation) of the idea of absolute difference (uniqueness, originality) between individuals in the post-modern era, as opposed to more general schemes defined by previously prominent forms of identity such as customs (cultures), castes (classes) and religion (and arguably nationalities).
Working through a genealogical history in the compilation of his lectures under the name of “Society Must be Defended”, Michel Foucault introduces the concept of ‘biopower’, which operates on the site of the individual, through the practice of discipline and mechanical perfection of bodily orientation. The birth of ‘biopower’ concept is key to generating a modern understanding of ‘identity’ and is traced to the early industrialisation era of 17th Century Western Europe . This era, according to Foucault represents the initial genealogical shift in the realm of production of knowledge where “…we see something new emerging in the second half of the 18th Century: a new technology of power, but this time it is not disciplinary, it exists on a different level, on a different scale and because it has a different bearing area, makes use of very different instruments, unlike discipline, which is addressed to bodies, the new nondisciplinary power is applied not to man-as-body but to man-as-species” (Foucault, 1975). This particular shift is defined by “biopolitics” and its subject is the “population” which it defines through the advent of “statistics” and controls through the processes such as “birth rate, mortality, longevity… a whole series of related economic and political problems”. Simply put, “biopower” is to the “individual” while “biopolitics” is to the “population”. Modern version of ‘identity’, therefore, can be seen as a concept that is born in the era of ‘biopolitics’, given its intimate relationship with statistical knowledge production and its positionality within a population.
Avatars
As such, avatars (the visualisation of self-sovereign identities) go beyond simply providing users with further ownership and control over their cryptographically secure identities, by offering an end-to-end application ecosystem designed to facilitate the commerce and exchange of digital and physical services. It facilitates trust, traceability and compliance at every end of the transference of data — without relying on a third party other than computers. Essentially, self-sovereign identity is a way to express an aspiration towards full autonomy over the usage, storage and transfer one’s digital data — an aspiration in direct relation to what blockchain is promised to bring in contemporary discourse.
Building on these contemporary theoretical definitions and picking up from the genealogical history where Foucault left, it can be claimed that our contemporary era has seen what we can call the emergence of ‘biodigital’ power. In simple terms, biodigital power stems from the advent and proliferation of the internet, as individuals gain, distribute, manipulate and manage an array of identities within a virtual population which they do not necessarily have to ‘fit into’. This shift, therefore, is rooted in pervasive technological advancement and usage, in line with how biopower and biopolitics were generated through different phases of industrialisation and leaps in technological capabilities.
