Community Currency Research Articles

지속가능한 발전을 위한 소비생활방식 연구 - 공동체화폐운동을 중심으로-

지속가능한 발전을 위한 소비생활방식 연구 - 공동체화폐운동을 중심으로-

Transaction network analysis for studying Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS): Research potentials and limitations

The numerous studies of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) have so far been based mostly on qualitative approaches. The aim of this paper is to introduce the method of transaction network analysis as an important complement to these studies, enabling one to quantitatively describe functioning of LETS in terms of the actual flows of currency, materialized transactions and topology of the exchange network, the types of information markedly missing in most of the existing LETS studies. We demonstrate the potentials of the method on the case of the LETS initiative “RozLEŤSe” based in Brno, Czech Republic. Looking at the transaction flows using the network analysis approach, we identify the key members of the group, network characteristics of the exchange system and its development over time. This allows us not only to provide a complex description of the system, but also to simulate certain scenarios (e.g. removal of a key person from the network). Within the discussion of potentials and limitations of applying transaction network analysis for studying LETS and other community currency initiatives (e.g. time banks) on a larger scale, we also provide a free accessible software tool for doing so and invite other researchers to cooperate on the task.

Reciprocity and redistribution in an Economy of Solidarity (Reciprocidad y redistribución en una economía solidaria)

The ‘Economy of Solidarity’ is a proposal that appeared in Latin America in the last decade of the twentieth century as part of the global movement seeking alternatives to the market society model. The Economy of Solidarity suggests that society claims responsibility on the basis of solidarity in the production, distribution and consumption, and that the economic practice regenerates social life with models of reciprocity and redistribution outside the capitalist system. The first part of the text summarizes the historical circumstances of the emergence of civil society organizations in Latin America, whose various alternative initiatives came together in the so-called World Social Forum since the year 2000. The second part explains the proposal of the Economy of Solidarity as part of that movement by highlighting the role of the gift culture, and the concepts of reciprocity and redistribution, which are defined in detail due to their relevance in the alternatives to capitalism. The examples of both concepts are included; an example of reciprocity is the exchange of products at local markets, seeking a more balanced urban-rural relationship; a redistribution example is used in social or community currencies that facilitate the distribution of basic goods between local market's participants. Finally, we admit there is still some way ahead before the Economy of Solidarity becomes a reality, but its scope should be observed by social scientists.

Reciprocity and redistribution in an Economy of Solidarity (Reciprocidad y redistribución en una economía solidaria)

The ‘Economy of Solidarity’ is a proposal that appeared in Latin America in the last decade of the twentieth century as part of the global movement seeking alternatives to the market society model. The Economy of Solidarity suggests that society claims responsibility on the basis of solidarity in the production, distribution and consumption, and that the economic practice regenerates social life with models of reciprocity and redistribution outside the capitalist system. The first part of the text summarizes the historical circumstances of the emergence of civil society organizations in Latin America, whose various alternative initiatives came together in the so-called World Social Forum since the year 2000. The second part explains the proposal of the Economy of Solidarity as part of that movement by highlighting the role of the gift culture, and the concepts of reciprocity and redistribution, which are defined in detail due to their relevance in the alternatives to capitalism. The examples of both concepts are included; an example of reciprocity is the exchange of products at local markets, seeking a more balanced urban-rural relationship; a redistribution example is used in social or community currencies that facilitate the distribution of basic goods between local market's participants. Finally, we admit there is still some way ahead before the Economy of Solidarity becomes a reality, but its scope should be observed by social scientists.

Opinion

Anthropology NewsVolume 55, Issue 5 p. e1-e15 Opinion Opinion First published: 08 October 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-3502.2014.55501.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract MAXIMIZING SUCCESS FOR UNDERGRADUATE ANTHROPOLOGY MAJORS | “Missed Manners (Part Two)” by Ty Matejowsky and Beatriz Reyes-Foster ARCHEOLOGY IN NORTH AMERICA | “Punk Archaeology and Excavating Video Games in New Mexico” by Robert Muckle ANTHROPOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE | “Finding an Energy Policy to Avoid the End of the World as We Know It” by Merrill Singer GHOST ANTHROPOLOGIES | “Latent City” by Samuel Gerald Collins OTRA ECONOMÍA AND ANTHROPOLOGY | “Community Currencies, Exchange and Gift Economies in Latin America” by Ana Inés Heras ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR | Sarah Ono, Heather Schacht Reisinger and Samantha L Solimeo, eds. “Working at FDA in Regulatory Science” by James P Stansbury POSTCARDS FROM THE FRONTLINES | “Entre Coyotes” by Gabriella Sanchez Keywords: anthropology education, public anthropology, implementation science, climate change, migration, archaeology, FDA, bilingual education, linguistic anthropology, anthropology of religion Volume55, Issue5May 2014Pages e1-e15 RelatedInformation

Resilience or Resistance? Time Banking in the Age of Austerity

Within the UK the economic crisis has been utilised by the coalition government to promote a very specific policy response. Through the notion of ‘austerity’ there has been an efficient attack on welfare provision, building on the tradition of UK governments since the 1980s, to demonise welfare claimants, advocate cultural and behavioural explanations of social problems and continue to pursue a neo-liberal policy agenda. The coalition government has associated this with the need to further promote self-help through the localism and, now defunct, Big Society agendas. This paper explores one initiative promoted by the UK coalition government within both the Big Society and social care reform: time banking. Time banking is a form of community currency which has developed globally since the 1980s (including a number of European countries) and in the UK since the late-1990s. The paper sets out how austerity and the Big Society present a particular form of neo-liberalism within the UK and are built upon the notion of responsibilisation. How time banking is drawn into the Big Society is then illustrated before examining the potential for promoting resistance to neo-liberal ideas and practice and the challenges faced by efforts to resist.

Complementary currencies: what opportunities for sustainable consumption in times of crisis and beyond?

This article explores contemporary forms of social and solidarity-based economies, commonly known in French as économie sociale et solidaire (ESS). In English-speaking countries, these activities are part of what is being called the human or people-centered economy, or new economics—a growing area of research, policy and practice that is highly relevant to sustainable consumption studies. This article focuses on complementary currencies, or more specifically community currencies, as one aspect of ESS and as illustrated through case studies from Argentina, Japan, and Switzerland. The main research question is how community currencies might live up to ESS guiding principles and help transitions toward more sustainable consumption. Historical, empirical, and theoretical perspectives are discussed. One conclusion is that ESS and complementary currencies tend to make their value system explicit, placing people above profit for example, while “sustainability” continues to struggle with the compatibility of economic growth with social equity and environmental limits. While complementary currencies may not be a magic wand toward sustainable consumption, they are certainly a useful walking stick for steps in the direction of more sustainable pathways.

Le système de l'écu privé : comment a-t-il fonctionné ? comment aurait-il pu évoluer ?

Alors que la crise de la zone euro a été l’occasion d’envisager une sortie de la Grèce, voire d’autres pays, de la zone euro, on ne peut s’empêcher de réexaminer les différentes étapes qui nous ont conduits à la monnaie unique. Avant le choix décisif fait à la fin des années 1980, une monnaie avait commencé à être utilisée modestement par les pays participant au système monétaire européen… et par quelques autres. Cet écu privé, comme on l’a appelé, aurait pu devenir une monnaie communautaire qui n’aurait pas remplacé les monnaies nationales, mais qui aurait pu être disponible pour les transactions entre deux pays, comme Keynes l’avait imaginé, au niveau international, au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre.Cet article rappelle ce que cet écu privé a été et comment ce système a fonctionné, et analyse le rôle qu’il a joué dans l’évolution vers la monnaie unique et quel rôle aurait pu être le sien.Classification JEL : E42, F31, F33.

Desperately seeking niches: Grassroots innovations and niche development in the community currency field

The sustainability transitions literature seeks to explain the conditions under which technological innovations can diffuse and disrupt existing socio-technical systems through the successful scaling up of experimental ‘niches’; but recent research on ‘grassroots innovations’ argues that civil society is a promising but under-researched site of innovation for sustainability, albeit one with very different characteristics to the market-based innovation normally considered in the literature. This paper aims to address that research gap by exploring the relevance of niche development theories in a civil society context. To do this, we examine a growing grassroots innovation – the international field of community currencies – which comprises a range of new socio-technical configurations of systems of exchange which have emerged from civil society over the last 30 years, intended to provide more environmentally and socially sustainable forms of money and finance. We draw on new empirical research from an international study of these initiatives comprising primary and secondary data and documentary sources, elite interviews and participant observation in the field. We describe the global diffusion of community currencies, and then conduct a niche analysis to evaluate the utility of niche theories for explaining the development of the community currency movement. We find that some niche-building processes identified in the existing literature are relevant in a grassroots context: the importance of building networks, managing expectations and the significance of external ‘landscape’ pressures, particularly at the level of national-type. However, our findings suggest that existing theories do not fully capture the complexity of this type of innovation: we find a diverse field addressing a range of societal systems (money, welfare, education, health, consumerism), and showing increasing fragmentation (as opposed to consolidation and standardisation); furthermore, there is little evidence of formalised learning taking place but this has not hampered movement growth. We conclude that grassroots innovations develop and diffuse in quite different ways to conventional innovations, and that niche theories require adaptation to the civil society context.

Growing green money? Mapping community currencies for sustainable development

Parallel sustainable monetary systems are being developed by civil society groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), informed by ecological economics perspectives on development, value, economic scale and growth, and responding to the unsustainability of current global financial systems. These parallel systems of exchange (or community currencies) are designed to promote sustainable development by localising economic development, building social capital and substituting for material consumption, valuing work which is marginalised in conventional labour markets, and challenging the growth-based monetary system. However, this international movement towards community-based ecological economic practices, is under-researched. This paper presents new empirical evidence from the first international study of the scope and character of community currencies. It identifies the diversity, scale, geography and development trajectory of these initiatives, discusses the implications of these findings for efforts to achieve sustainable development, and identifies future research needs, to help harness the sustainability potential of these initiatives.

Time and punishment: a comparison of UK and US time bank use in criminal justice systems

Time banking, a form of community currency facilitating time-based exchanges, developed in the United States during the 1980s before transferring to the United Kingdom in the late 1990s. Whilst now operating in over 30 countries, this paper explores the US–UK link, focusing on time bank practices within criminal justice. Examining time bank theory and the UK/US policy contexts, this paper provides an account of the Time Dollar Youth Court and the UK time bank prisons initiative, to facilitate a discussion of policy transfer and lesson drawing. Such an approach provides a fresh insight into time bank development, opening up a previously unexplored aspect of time bank policy experimentation.

공동체화폐운동 참여자의 소비생활에서 나타나는 윤리적 소비 특성 연구

The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of ethical consumption in the Community Currency Movement participant's daily life as a consumer. Qualitative research methods are used for the understanding about the participation activities and the daily lives as a consumer of Hanbat LETS participants'. The characteristics of ethical consumption used for analysing of the Community Currency Movement are the subjective participation, production process-aware consumption, others care to consumption, sustainable consumption, voluntarily simple life. The major results of this study show that the Community Currency Movement is the alternative economic system practicing the ethical consumption. The Community Currency Movement increase the subject participation, realize the social responsibility and community society and the ecological value and voluntary simple life. This research get the meaning for considering the Community Currency Movement & the ethical consumption on the discriminatory perspective.

Nerdy Money: Bitcoin, the Private Digital Currency, and the Case Against Its Regulation

This Comment explores the lawfulness of using bitcoin, a privately-issued currency transacted on a peer-to-peer network, and the ability of the federal government to bar transactions between two willing parties. While there are no cases yet challenging the ability of parties in the United States to make transactions using bitcoins, there are policymakers who have denounced the use of bitcoin. This has led to the question of whether the federal government has the ability under current federal law to prohibit the use of bitcoins between willing parties. This Comment will show that the federal government has no basis to stop bitcoin users who engage in traditional consumer purchases and transfers. This Comment further argues that the federal government should refrain from passing any laws or regulations limiting the use of bitcoins. Should any claim arise, this Comment argues that there is a perfectly acceptable model with which to analogize bitcoin use: community currencies.

COMPLEMENTING THE LOCAL AND GLOBAL: PROMOTING SUSTAINABILITY ACTION THROUGH LINKED LOCAL‐LEVEL AND FORMAL SUSTAINABILITY FUNDING MECHANISMS

SUMMARYThis article explores some of the challenges associated with financing sustainability action at the local level, using South Africa and the UK as case studies. Formal climate finance, including flows through multilateral development banks and private sector investor markets, has been criticised for failing effectively to link global financial interests to community needs and priorities. We discuss how a number of new financial innovations, including TimeBanking, community currencies, community share schemes, and peer‐to‐peer lending could help to bridge this gap. In particular, we explore how such financial innovations could be employed to support a more community‐driven allocation of sustainability financing that prioritises local social and environmental benefits. We suggest that grassroots financing mechanisms have the potential to account for the social dimension in mobilising resources in a green economy as well as supporting civil society and local governments to develop greater decision‐making around the mobilisation and allocation of sustainability resourcing. Further, by bringing together the local and the global, sustainability financing instruments could also help to create synergies and constructive partnerships among public administrations, markets, and society for finding creative and locally appropriate solutions to promote sustainable development. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Present Problem of the Hokkaido Regional Economy and a Remedy: A Reform Plan of the Institution of Money and Finance by Using Hokkaido Community Currency

Hokkaido as a regional economy outside metropolitan areas in Japan has suffered many serious economic problems in the ‘two lost decades’ caused by the current trend of globalization of capitalistic market economies. For instance, prolonged depression, decline of local economies, disparity between urban and rural regions in term of the rate of bankruptcies and the rate of unemployment, and persistent interregional balance of payments were observed. Hokkaido is frequently advised to strengthen its secondary industries to lessen its big interregional deficit of payments, however, it seems to be out of date in our post-industrial age and irrelevant to the region whose major sectors are agriculture and tourism. The implicit assumptions of theory of comparative advantage that back up such a remedy are also examined. In order to give a theoretically possible answer to such problems, the present paper, based on evolutionist institutional design in terms of money and finance, proposes a new reform plan for creating Hokkaido Community Currency (HCC) for enhancing local production for local consumption and forming a more sustainable and ethical socioeconomy.

Economic democracy: A path for the future?

As opposed to political democracy and its attempts at power control in the public sector, the concentration of economic power, and its antidote, the concept of economic democracy, has received much less attention. In the paper, we first offer a definition of economic democracy as a “a system of checks and balances on economic power and support for the right of citizens to actively participate in the economy regardless of social status, race, gender, etc.” Based on our definition, we suggest six possible faces of economic democracy and look at their implications for the vision of a sustainable, equitable and non-growing society, as discussed within the degrowth movement: (1) Regulation of market mechanisms and corporate activities. Regulation is one of the most obvious paths to curbing economic power, hence we highlight the issue of deregulation vis a vis possible degrowth policies. A revision of the free-market paradigm is suggested. (2) Support for social enterprises. We discuss different forms of democratic governance within enterprises and suggest that co-operative approaches, common in social enterprises, are better suited to a degrowth economy. (3) Democratic money creation processes, including pluralist community currencies, are suggested to counter economic power caused by the practice of fractional banking. (4) Reclaiming the commons (especially in their original sense as communal land stewardship systems) both conceptually and physically is seen by us as an important aspect of enhancing economic democracy. (5) Redistribution of income and capital assets is discussed as another approach to achieving economic democracy. (6) Finally, inspired by Vandana Shiva, we suggest that a broader view of economic democracy would involve a diversity of production scales and modes, including small-scale, subsistence and self-employment.

Regards sur les monnaies sociales et complémentaires

Le dossier presente ici est constitue de quatre textes dont des versions preliminaires ont ete presentees lors du colloque international Trente annees de monnaies sociales et complementaires, et apres ? , qui s'est tenu a l'Ecole normale superieure de Lyon les 16-17 fevrier 2011. Cette introduction presente ce colloque et discute les quatre textes. Elle souligne la diversite des dispositifs etudies, la question des difficultes et des reussites, commune aux quatre textes, ainsi que des questions transversales soulevees.

Development of Green-Community Voucher and Synergy Effect with Mobility Management - Possibility of Low-Carbon Community Development and Regional Revitalization -

This study attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of a mobility management (MM) measure utilizing a circulation system of “Green-community voucher” (i.e. a community currency) on encouraging the citizen to shift to public transport. Green-community voucher circulation system collects the funds for developing a solar power plant, and provides discount service for the customers in local shop. The system is expected to contribute both of the revitalization of local stores and the reduction of GHG emission in the region. At the same time, an MM measure has been conducted to make the customers to change their car-use behavior to local stores. About 130 vouchers were sold for the first three months, and about 30% of sold vouchers were consumed. As a revitalization effect of the MM measure, one-third participants highly intended to switch the daily shopping destination from large shopping complexes to local stores. In terms of the impacts on travel behavior, it promoted to switch from private car to bike/walk for shopping. Furthermore, the MM combining with Greencommunity voucher system induced a synergistic effect of CO2 emission-reduction. These results show the MM measure could realize a well-balanced region between low-carbon and revitalization.

Trust in money: hard, soft and idealistic factors in Euro, gold and German community currencies

In this article, we want to prepare the grounds for a psychology of trust in money, trust being key to sustainable money systems. On the basis of an analysis of functional money characteristics, we constructed 12 scales for trust-related money aspects: liquidity, fungibility, stability, backing, credibility of the issuers, system security, image, manageability and idealistic aspects. In an online study (N = 394) comprising a sub-sample of 97 users of community currencies in Germany, we tested the scales for three currencies: Euro, gold and community currencies. We could confirm the hypothesis of a divide between a hard, economic factor and a soft factor of trust in money. In addition, we found a third, idealistic factor in community currencies. The three currencies significantly differed with regard to the 12 trust-related functional aspects and specific uses: Euro is preferred for purchase and investing and gold for storage and community currencies for donations. The discussion centres on the concept of trust applied to money.

A social constructivist analysis of the 2007 banking crisis: Building trust and transparency through community currencies

This article examines the 2007 banking crisis from an interdisciplinary and, in particular, social constructivist perspective to identify its structural and systemic causes. After presenting and explaining a wide meta-theoretical framework that can accommodate different understandings of socio-economic action, it argues that some of the scale-invariant properties of community currency systems could usefully be applied to global finance. On this basis, it presents a concrete proposal for strengthening the democratic dimension of the banking system as a vital nexus between the real economy, government and society.