Цб CD 297
A Methodological Approach to
Address the Role of CCs in Sustainability / Florencia Radeljak.
// Complementary Currency Systems Bridging
Communities : Proceedings of 6th Biennial RAMICS Congress, 27-29
October, 2022, University of National and World Economy, Sofia,
Bulgaria / Scientific committee Ester Barinaga, et al. ;
Editorial committee Rossitsa Toncheva, et al. - Sofia : Monetary
and Economic Research Center /MRC/, 2023. - 416-428.
This paper is an attempt to design a
methodology to systematize and analyze possible monetary designs
that promote sustainable modes of production and consumption,
rooted in local practices and knowledges. Based on data from case
studies on three complementary currencies in the Basque Country
performed in 2017 (the Ekhi, the Eusko and the Txantxi) this
paper proposes a conceptualization of money as an actant, as seen
through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Money is thereby
seen as the result of an ecology of interactions within the
network and, as such, is shaped by processes like technological
innovations, public regulation, conflict of interests between key
actors designing, regulating and using the currencies, relations
with other currencies, symbolic objects and values. In the light
of ANT, money is approached in its dynamism: It may affect
society and Nature, depending on the interactions taking place in
the network. From this theoretical standpoint, the paper proposes
a methodology mapping the actors of the currencies, thereby
identifying the manner in which they associate the different
elements of a monetary design, whether it be technical, social or
natural. The paper illustrates the functioning of the ANT as a
methodology of study by describing all the operations of
associations that took place in an experience in the Spanish
Basque Country: the Txantxi, which as a social project was
terminated by the unicipality in 2017. The case study thus
provide useful information on how the currency takes different
forms as it interacts with an ecology of relations with different
actors (human and non-human), like the geographical and symbolic
territory, the technological design, the relationship with the
Euro, the relationship with different agendas relating to
sustainability such as agroecology and localization of the
economy. The paper draws some preliminary conclusions on the
mapping of the different actors that supported the functioning of
the CCs, bringing light into the complexity
of money, which is not just a mere “one size fits all”-tool but a
specific network shaped by society, and as an actor interacting,
at the same time, with nature, economy and society.
1. Currency systems - UNWE - congress
proceedings
336.74
Сист. N: 107473
