Profile
Koray Caliskan is an economic sociologist and organizational designer. He is a tenured Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons, The New School and Associate Editor of the Journal of Cultural Economy. He designed the strategy of MaMame, a social innovation project bringing together cooperative and limited liability company in economizing under-represented women’s labor, which won the Entrepreneurship of the Year Award in 2017 from Microsoft. He directed, produced and wrote many award-winning fiction and documentary films, including Esma, shown at the Cannes Film Festival. He is the co-founder of the strategic design studio, The Wrong Department, with practices in London and NYC. His last research project on cryptocurrencies and blockchains was selected to be a winner of the Scientific Breakthrough of the Year Award of 2021 in Social Sciences by the Falling Walls Foundation, Berlin. His last book, based on this research, Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies and their Communities, Blockchains and Markets was published from Columbia University Press in September 2023. Currently, on an ESRC collaborative grant, he is carrying out research on the economic sociology of online advertisements. His forthcoming book, co-authored with Michel Callon and Donald MacKenzie, titled "Economization: Markets, Economies and Platforms in Perspective," is set to be released by Columbia UP in 2024.
Degrees Held
BA. 1995. Political Science, Bogazici University, Istanbul.
MA. 1999. Politics, NYU, New York.
Certificate. 2001. Commodity Options and Futures Trading, Rhodes College, Memphis.
Ph.D. 2005. Politics, NYU, New York
Professional Affiliation
American Sociological Association, ASA
Design Research Society
Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, SASE
Association for Social Economics, ASE
Middle Eastern Studies Association, MESA
American Anthropological Association, AAA
European Group for Organization Studies, EGOS
Recent Publications
Books:
2011. Market Threads: How Farmers and Traders Create a Global Commodity, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
2023. Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies and their Markets, Communities and Blockchains, New York: Columbia University Press.
Forthcoming in 2024 (with Michel Callon and Donald MacKenzie) Economization: Markets, Economies and Platforms in Perspective, New York: Columbia University Press.
Peer-Reviewed and Indexed Academic Articles: (Last 4 years only)
2023. (with Charlotte Rommerskirchen and Donald MacKenzie) Strange Bedfellows: Consumer Protection and competition policy in the making of the EU privacy Regime. Journal of Common Market Studies. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13552
2023. (with Donald MacKenzie and Charlotte Rommerskirchen) Header Bidding: ‘Systems’, ‘Gatherings’ and the Material Politics of Market Structure in Online Advertising, Economy and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2023.2238463
2022. (with Matt Wade) DARN Part 1: What is Strategic Design? Social Theory and Intangible Design in Perspective, She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation. Vol. 8, Iss. 3, Autumn 2022, pp. 299-318. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2022.10.001
2022. (with Matt Wade) DARN Part 2: An Evidence-Based Research and Prototyping Methodology for Strategic Design, She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation. Vol. 8, Iss. 3, Autumn 2022, pp. 319-335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2022.11.002
2022. (with Peter Karnoe and Julia Kirkegaard) Introducing the Lens of Markets-in-the-Making to Transition Studies: The Case of the Danish Wind Power Market Agencement. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Vol. 44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2022.05.003
2022. (with Michael Lounsbury) Entrepreneurialism as Discourse: Towards a Critical Research Agenda, Research in Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 72. Volume 81, pp. 43–53. doi:10.1108/S0733-558X20220000081003
2022. The Elephant in the Dark: A New Framework for Cryptocurrency Taxation and Exchange Platform Regulation in the US. Journal of Risk Financial Management. Vol. 15, Iss. 3, pp. 1-18, https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm15030118.
2022. The Rise and Fall of Electra: A Cryptocurrency Community in Perspective, Review of Social Economy, Vol 79, Iss. 4, 1-25, https://doi.org/10.1080/00346764.2022.2039404
2021. Data Money Makers: An Ethnographic Analysis of a Global Cryptocurrency Community, The British Journal of Sociology, Vol 73, 168-187. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12916
2021. Platform Works as Stack Economization: Cryptocurrency Markets and Exchanges in Perspective, Sociologica: International Journal for Sociological Debate, Vol. 14, Iss. 3, pp. 115-42. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11746
2020. Polanyi, Callon, and Amazon: Institutionalist, ANT, and DRAN Approaches to Platform Economies. Sociologica: International Journal for Sociological Debate, Vol. 14, Iss. 3, pp. 195-204. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11748
2020. Data Money: The Socio-Technical Infrastructure of Cryptocurrency Blockchains, Economy and Society, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2020.1774258
Curation
2022. Good Interventions: An Economic and Strategic Design Exhibition'22, Parsons School of Design, The New School.
2023. Good Interventions: An Economic and Strategic Design Exhibition'23, Parsons School of Design, The New School.
Data Sets
2021 (with Enis Simsar) Twitter Interaction Data of Electra Cryptocurrency Community's Twitter Handle Followers and A Code for Follower Interaction Analysis. GitHub Repository https://github.com/enisimsar/DataMoney https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4618865
2020 (with Ilker Birbil). Terms of Service Agreements of 251 Cryptocurrency Exchanges Representing 99.99% of Centralized Data Money Transactions. GitHub Repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4126569
2020 (with Ilker Birbil). The White Papers of Most Valuable 100 Cryptocurrencies. GitHub Repository https://github.com/sibirbil/DataMoney https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4126559
Performances and Appearances
How to make and destroy a cryptocurrency?
http://sds.parsons.edu/designmanagement/6616-2/
Economies are Designed, so they be redesigned:
https://platform.coop/stories/koray-caliskan-the-new-school-bogazici-university/
Coindesk TV Interview on 'Witnessing a New Money Material.'
https://www.coindesk.com/video/author-on-crypto-we-are-witnessing-a-new-money-material/
Research Interests
Online Advertisement
Intangible Design Methods
Markets
Organizational Design
Platform Economies
Cryptocurrencies
Awards And Honors
2021 Winner. Scientific Breakthroughs of the Year Award in Social Sciences and Humanities. The Falling Walls Foundation
2021 Social and Economic Research Council Grant, UK. (720.000 USD with two team members).
2018 Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies Fellowship, NSSR.
2018 Short listed for the Georg-Forster Award, Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung
2018 Chancellor's Fellowship. University of Edinburgh, (Declined)
2017 The Entrepreneurship of the Year Award, for mamame.com.tr Microsoft Corp, Kagider, Turkey.
2015 Academic Achievement Award, Bogazici University, Rector’s Office
2006 Outstanding Teaching Award, Bogazici University, Rector’s Office
2005 Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award in Social Sciences, Middle East Studies Association of North America
2005 New York University, Graduation with Distinction Certificate.
Portfolio
Esma, Short Film, 18:00, Director, Writer
In Flames, Feature Film, 100:00, Producer, Co-Writer
Last Villagers of Avshar, 45:00, Documentary, Director
Pipelines Made up of Donkeys, 45:00 Documentary, Producer, Al Jazeera
Republic of Wonderland: Turkish TV Series in the World, Documentary, 240:00 (4 Parts), Producer