My paper proposes the concept of relational work to explain economic activity. In all economic action, I argue, people engage in the process of differentiating meaningful social relations. For each distinct category of social relations, people erect a boundary, mark the boundary by means of names and practices, establish a set of distinctive understandings that operate within that boundary, designate certain sorts of economic transactions as appropriate for the relation, bar other transactions as inappropriate, and adopt certain media for reckoning and facilitating economic transactions within the relation. I call that process relational work. After identifying specific elements of a relational work approach, the paper focuses on the case of monetary differentiation. It compares a relational work theory of earmarking money with behavioral economics’ individually based mental accounting approach.

How I Became a Relational Economic Sociologist and What Does That Mean

The past remains essential - and inescapable. A quarter-century after the publication of his classic account of man's attitudes to his past, David Lowenthal revisits how we celebrate, expunge, contest and domesticate the past to serve present needs. He shows how nostalgia and heritage now pervade every facet of public and popular culture. History embraces nature and the cosmos as well as humanity. The past is seen and touched and tasted and smelt as well as heard and read about. Empathy, re-enactment, memory and commemoration overwhelm traditional history. A unified past once certified by experts and reliant on written texts has become a fragmented, contested history forged by us all. New insights into history and memory, bias and objectivity, artefacts and monuments, identity and authenticity, and remorse and contrition, make this book once again the essential guide to the past that we inherit, reshape and bequeath to the future.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/2325548X.2017.1315261

The Past Is a Foreign Country - Revisited

The geography of money

http://base.socioeco.org/docs/seyfang-longhurst-green-money-scorai-2013.pdf

Growing green money? Mapping community currencies for sustainable development

The Future of Money. By Benjamin J. Cohen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 312p. $29.95. Benjamin Cohen has produced yet another excellent volume on the political economy of international monetary affairs, this time with a worthy successor to his previous opus, The Geography of Money (1998). Like most of Cohen's scholarship, The Future of Money displays the author's remarkable facility with the vast breadth of issues, theories, puzzles, and esoterica associated with monetary matters, as well as a confident command of monetary policy and history. Future is perhaps less ambitious than Geography, but it is tight, well argued, and not wanting for important claims.

The Future of Money

Since the emergence of "CCs" thirty years ago, attempts to build typologies and to name things properly have always been disappointing, as if the very object of the analysis escaped from any rigid classification. A major problem that arises with regards to CCs is the obsolescence of previous typologies, due to rapid innovation and the weakening of borders (technological, juridical, political, ideological...) that seemed unlikely to be broken down. Even the terms "complementary currency", "community currency" and many others (with language specificities in English as well as in other languages - for example, in Latin language-speaking countries, something like "social money" is frequently employed) are not considered similarly by activists, scholars, policy-makers or users. As a result, there is no common typology shared by scholars, activists and observers, beyond a series of general considerations clearly distinguishing specific items between CC schemes. Building a typology requires first to state the precise objectives of it; different objectives may lead to different typologies. The present short paper aims at proposing ways to build typologies in a flexible framework, able to include further developments of the matter. Section 2 discusses the principles of a CC typology. Section 3 proposes a distinction between local, community, and complementary currencies, based on the schemes' projects, formulated through redistribution, reciprocity and market criteria. Section 4 distinguishes, in the recent past, four generations of CC schemes, related to combination of previous ideal types : unconvertible community schemes like LETS and trueque (G1), pure time exchange schemes (G2), convertible currencies with local economic objectives like Regio, Palmas or Ithaca currencies (G3) and multiplex schemes like NU and SOL projects (G4). Section 5 concludes. Available online : [ http://ijccr.net/2012/05/29/classifying-ccs-community-complementary-and-local-currencies/ ]

Classifying "CCs": Community, complementary and local currencies' types and generations

This text focuses on the role of governments and administrations in the emergence, spread, development and differentiation of community and complementary currency schemes (CCs), highlighting their role as potential support for experimentation. This support can take various forms: technical, financial, fiscal, official and/or legal recognition. We present first the role of governments, mostly local, in the emergence and development of four generations of CCs. We distinguish then a series of modes of action of governments at central and local levels. This leads to identify the interest of being supported (greater professionalism, greater complexity and possibly greater impact) while emphasizing the risks linked to public support as well.

Zum Verstandnis der Rolle von Regierungen und Verwaltungen bei der Einfuhrung von Gemeinschafts- und Komplementarwahrungen

Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit der Rolle von Regierungen und Verwaltungen bei der Entstehung, Verbreitung, Entwicklung und Differenzierung von Gemeinschafts- und Komplementarwahrungssystemen – „CCs“ (community and complementary currency schemes) –, wobei ihre Rolle als potenzielle Unterstutzer beim Experimentieren mit den CCs herausgestellt wird. Die Unterstutzung kann vielfaltige Formen annehmen: technische, finanzielle, fiskalische, behordliche und/oder rechtliche Anerkennung. Als erstes zeigen wir die Rolle von Regierungen und Verwaltungen – zumeist der lokalen Ebene – bei der Entstehung und Entwicklung von vier Generationen von CCs auf. Wir unterscheiden sodann eine Reihe von Regierungsaktionen auf zentraler und lokaler Ebene. Festgestellt wird im Ergebnis ein Interesse daran, von Regierungen und Verwaltungen unterstutzt zu werden (im Hinblick auf grosere Professionalitat, grosere Komplexitat und moglicherweise grosere Wirkung), es wird aber auch auf die Risiken hingewiesen, die mit offentlicher Unterstutzung verbunden sind.

Quel role pour les pouvoirs publics dans la mise en œuvre de projets de monnaies sociales?

Ce texte se concentre sur le role des pouvoirs publics, et particulierement des collectivites locales, dans l’emergence, la diffusion, le developpement et la differenciation des dispositifs de monnaies sociales ou complementaires, en mettant en avant leur role de soutien potentiel a l'experimentation. Ce soutien peut prendre diverses formes : technique, financiere, fiscale, reconnaissance officielle et/ou juridique. Nous commencerons par expliciter le role plus ou moins actif des pouvoirs publics dans l’emergence et le developpement des dispositifs de monnaies sociales en distinguant quatre generations de ces dispositifs. Nous distinguerons ensuite differents types de modalites d'action des pouvoirs publics, au niveau local ou central. Cela conduit a identifier l'interet de tels soutiens (un plus grand professionnalisme, une plus grande complexite et la possibilite d'un plus grand impact), tout en soulignant les risques engendres par ces soutiens publics.

Cual es el papel de los poderes publicos en el despligue de proyectos de monedas sociales?

El presente articulo se centra en el papel de los poderes publicos, en especial de las administraciones locales, en la aparicion, difusion, desarrollo y diferenciacion de las monedas sociales (CCs), poniendo enfasis en su rol de apoyo a la experimentacion.



Este apoyo puede adoptar diversas formas: tecnica, financiera, fiscal asi como reconocimiento oficial y/o legal. El texto comienza estudiando el rol de los gobiernos, principalmente locales, en la emergencia y desarrollo de cuatro generaciones de medidas de actuacion publica Se diferenciara a continuacion cuatro tipos de medidas de actuacion de nivel central y local. Ello permitira analizar la idoneidad de estas medidas de apoyo (atendiendo a su mayor profesionalidad, mayor complejidad y potencial mayor impacto) asi como los riesgos de que puedan ser objeto.

Understanding the Role of Governments and Administrations in the Implementation of Community and Complementary Currencies

This text focuses on the role of governments and administrations in the emergence, spread, development and differentiation of community and complementary currency schemes (CCs), highlighting their role as potential support for experimentation. This support can take various forms: technical, financial, fiscal, official and/or legal recognition. We present first the role of governments,mostly local, in the emergence and development of four generations of CCs. We distinguish then a series of modes of action of governments at central and local levels. This leads to identify the interest of being supported (greater professionalism, greater complexity and possibly greater impact) while emphasizing the risks linked to public support as well.

Understanding the role of governments and administrations in the implementation of community and complementary currencies

Ce texte cherche a montrer en quoi les monnaies sociales, ces dispositifs monetaires locaux emergents, constituent des innovations sociales. Il montre tout d’abord comment les modalites de diffusion des monnaies sociales menagent la possibilite de l’innovation. Il se concentre ensuite sur quatre dimensions transversales caracterisant l’innovation sociale et que l’on retrouve dans les monnaies sociales : l’importance des finalites et de l’ancrage local, des logiques partenariales autour d’un projet federateur, une critique du modele dominant et l’emergence de regles et de formes novatrices.Codes JEL : B52, O31, P40

/pdf/les-monnaies-sociales-en-tant-que-dispositifs-innovants-une-fy8nrcqq4w.pdf

Les monnaies sociales en tant que dispositifs innovants : une évaluation

Alternative consumption schemes require the selection of producers and traders according to criteria and through processes that should make alternative values concrete. The way values turn concrete is crucial for the effectiveness of such projects. This paper investigates the ways criteria and processes are defined and their real meanings and uses through the case of associative local currencies. Drawing on the framework of proximities, it analyses local currency schemes as combining proximities (geographical and non-geographical) and selection processes set up for providers wishing to join. Selection processes may be based on a charter, an approval committee and screening criteria. The objectives of the selection, its measures in principle, the way in which it is applied as well as the practical consequences are discussed. Even when charters and formal participatory schemes for selecting providers are established, proximities appear as the keystone of selection and trust.

/pdf/turning-values-concrete-the-role-and-ways-of-business-nkxmwwe4ax.pdf

Jérôme Blanc

Papers

Classifying "CCs": Community, complementary and local currencies' types and generations

Understanding the Role of Governments and Administrations in the Implementation of Community and Complementary Currencies

Understanding the role of governments and administrations in the implementation of community and complementary currencies

Les monnaies sociales en tant que dispositifs innovants : une évaluation

Turning values concrete: the role and ways of business selection in local currency schemes