venerdì 12 ottobre 2012

2nd International Conference on Complementary Currency


Multiple moneys and development: making payments in diverse economies

2nd International Conference on Complementary Currency Systems (CCS)  19 – 22 June 2013

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The conference is organized by the Civic Innovation Research Initiative at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
  1. It calls for papers on complementary currency systems, historical experiences with multiple monies, alternative exchange networks, and other practices with diverse means of payment.
  2. It seeks to discuss the social, economic and political significance of multiple currency systems for development.

The conference is bilingual (English and Spanish), with sessions organized in either language. It offers space to academics and practitioners alike to organize panels, workshops, and any other session formats that participants see fit to stimulate the exchange of ideas and experiences.
In principle the conference will have two strands with academic and practitioners’ activities respectively but there will be various instances for interconnection. The first two days of the conference (June 19th and June 20th) will concentrate the academic panels and the last two days (June 21st and June 22nd) will focus on the practitioners’ activities.
Exchanging credit tokens
The last International Conference on Community and Complementary Currencies held in Lyon, France, in February 2011 noted that there was no historical equivalent of such a growing tide of currency schemes since the beginnings of industrialization at the turn of the 19th century.
Among others, community and complementary currency systems include initiatives like the LETS, time banks, the Argentine Redes de trueque, the Ithaca Hours in the USA, the German regiogeld, the Brasilian community banks with surrogate currencies, the SOL currency in France, the ‘Transition Towns’ in the UK, the RES in Belgium and the Wir in Switzerland, mobile-phone payment systems in Uganda and Kenya, and for digital remittances in El Salvador.

THEMES

  • Meso and micro level analysis of CCS and their viability
  • Alternative economic systems and diverse economies
  • Social constructions of local resilient economies
  • Autonomous local development of regions
  • Environmentally sustainable local economies / low-carbon economies
  • Micro politics of resistance and civic-driven change
  • Historical experiences with multiple monetary circuits
  • The ontology of money as economic institution

PRACTICAL DETAILS AND IMPORTANT DATES

Conference registration fee
200 euros (includes full access to conference papers, lunches and dinner on 19 June) - online payment will be available shortly
Deadline for submission of abstracts and sessions
10 January 2013
Request for registration fees waivers and subsidies
30 March 2013
Deadline for registration and submission of papers
30 May 2013
Conference dates
19 to 22 June 2013 (19 & 20 June academic panel discussions, 21 & 22 June practitioners panel discussions)
Conference e-mail for all inquiries

PROPOSED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Professor Katherine Gibson, Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy University of Western Sydney, Human and Economic Geography, Australia

GOALS OF THE CONFERERENCE

The 2nd International Conference on Complementary and Community Currency Systems invites you to explore the ways in which CCS and the multiplicity of monetary circuits affect local development, households’ welfare, governance and civil society organizations.
The concept of development has a variety of meanings to different social groups, including economic and environmental sustainability, community resilience after shocks, political autonomy, and culturally embedded economic systems. Moreover, the conference seeks to consolidate the practice of meeting every two years to share and discuss research in the area of CCS, the ontology of money and alternative economic systems with own means of payment.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Georgina GomezGeorgina M. Gómez
Bert HelmsingAHJ (Bert) Helmsing
Rosalba Icaza GarzaRosalba Icaza Garza
Kees BiekartKees Biekart

BACKGROUND

A myriad of communities and localities around the world have become increasingly aware of the need to develop more resilient local economies, in balance with cultural diversity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. With civic agency and innovativeness, they have multiplied the schemes that give life and nest these values. NGOs and governments, noticeably at the local level, have also contributed initiatives with complementary currencies that pursue changes in social and economic practices. 
Examples of credit tokens
To some extent, the present profusion of complementary and community currency systems should not come as a novelty. Kuroda asserts that 'the majority of human beings throughout most of history dealt with concurrent currencies'[1], although separate monetary circuits typically coexisted in a given territory for different types of agents. Multiple money economies were the rule in history, which leads Blanc to discuss a complementary relationship between them, as opposed to a competitive view in which only one type of money can circulate in a given territory[2].
The principle of “one money, one country” is a relative newcomer in institutional history[3]. National monetary systems with only one currency regulated and protected by central banks emerged as a symbol of national capitalism in which states sought to control money, markets and accumulation within a nation, Keith Hart argues in The Memory Bank[4].
National monetary systems are being challenged by communities and localities that build CCS as a form of resistance to the expansion of global capitalism, at the same time as global capitalism is experiencing another chapter of critical transformation and financial downturn that has left thousands unemployed, excluded, and vulnerable. This reinforces the need to understand the local economy as a myriad of various economic practices with a framework as the one proposed by the diverse economies’ framework of Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson , keynote speaker in the conference.
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[1] Kuroda, Akinobu (2008) What is the complementarity among monies? An introductory note,Financial History Review, 15, pp 7­15.
[2] Blanc, J. (2009) Beyond the competition approach to money: A conceptual framework applied to the early modern France. XVth World Economic History Congress. Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
[3] Ingham, G. (1998). On the underdevelopment of the sociology of money. Acta Sociologica, 41(1), 1-17.
[4] Hart, K. (2001) Money in an Unequal World: Keith Hart and his memory bank. Texere, New York and London

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