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

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.

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

GOALS OF THE CONFERENCE:

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.

NOTE: This information is originally posted at this website:

http://www.iss.nl/research/conferences_and_seminars/periodic_conferences
_debates_and_seminars/complementary_currency_systems

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