**3. Methodological approach**

ANT lends itself to interpretivism in its fundamental thesis which seeks to understand and give a 'voice' to technology artefacts in a social context [27]. Therefore, the interpretive case study methodology is used as an analytical framework to guide and analyse a case study. This study, consistent with ANT, does not adopt an ontology of natural realism. In other words, data is not viewed as objective evidence supporting or falsifying an assertion but as texts and text analogues, whose meanings, when read hermeneutically, can go beyond the original intentions and meanings attributed by their sources. This study illustrates the mapping of blockchain to ANT with an interpretive case study from the Sudan land registration authority.

#### **3.1 Blockchain technology through the lens of actor-network theory**

ANT has previously been used to describe groups of actors and how those groups sought to define and inscribe particular codes and standards into particular electronic record technologies. Once the rules have become part of the network, they are hard to reverse [53]. ANT has immense potential for understanding the complex social

interactions associated with digital technology in various contexts [24]. Modern digital technologies represent the values of the policy-makers frozen in complex digital representations, such as algorithms, codes, electronic thresholds and applications. The idea of software as frozen discourse is an example of an inscription that resists change and irreversibility and leads to a frozen organisational discourse [11].

ANT's emphasis on the dynamic and relational aspects of a problem is a useful lens for studying non-linear change and the unintended outcomes of technology projects, including the stochastic events that are known to characterise BT projects and


#### **Table 2.**

*Blockchain representation using ANT concepts.*

*Perspective Chapter: Actor-Network Theory as an Organising Structure for Blockchain Adoption… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106751*

programmes [53]. The purpose of this theory is to discover and describe the processes for making patterns, social regulation and resistance [54].

**Table 2** illustrates BT through an ANT lens, followed by a discussion using a case study taken from Sudan's Land Registration system.
