Conceptualizing Silk Road as countercultural rebellion

Abstract

Silk Road (SR) is an anonymous online illicit marketplace (OIM) that is often cited as an example of criminal innovation. I add that SR is more than just a marketplace and should be considered as a demonstration of rebellion. The aim of this research is to critically co-construct a definition of SR with the members of the discussion forum. Through a virtual ethnography of the SR discussion forum, I qualitatively analyzed the textual data in order to conceptualize SR as what Robert Merton (1938) describes as rebellion and what Howard Becker (1963) refers to as pure deviance. In addition, an epistemological bricolage with the works of Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, and Michel Foucault was established to guide explanations of cultural exchange, relational trust, and the spatial dynamics of SR. I postulate that SR is more than an online illicit marketplace; it is a virtual heterotopic space and cryptocommunity that exists in countercultural rebellion against the hegemony of control societies. The findings of this study provide a new qualitatively rich conceptualization of SR.