common-pool resource

Mumbuca e-dinheiro and the challenges of requirements, codes and data digital community currency governance

Luiz Arthur S. Faria*, Fernando G. Severo**, Henrique L. Cukierman***, Eduardo H. Diniz****

*Fundação Getúlio Vargas and Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, luizart@gmail.com

** Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, severo@cos.ufrj.br

*** Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hcukier@cos.ufrj.br

****Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brazil, eduardo.diniz@fgv.br

Abstract

This paper discusses the governance process of digital complementary currencies (DCCs). Our reflections are based on contributions from fields such as the anthropology of economy and currencies, especially from the perspective of monetary plurality and governance of commons, and also on concepts developed in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The research effort accompanies the material changes of the Mumbuca DCC (Maricá, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), connected to the Brazilian Network of Community Development Banks (CDBs), which has accumulated more than one hundred experiences since 1998. We use three different approaches to investigate the Mumbuca digital platform: the processes related to the requirements of the digital platforms adopted, the tensions concerning its closed architecture model and finally the currency circulation data – now digital, and relatively traceable. The paper explores the impossibility to dissociate, on the one hand, the ‘social practices’ enunciated by the communities related to the local currency proposals (and connected to the idea of money as a commons) and, on the other, the materialities present in digitalization processes. Finally, calling for a sociotechnical approach, it outlines some of the challenges faced by the CDBs Network, towards treating the DCC as a commons.

Keywords

Digital community currencies; Social currencies; Commons; Governance

Article Faria et al.

To cite this article: Faria, L., Severo, F., Cukierman, H. and Diniz, E. (2020) ‘Mumbuca E-dinheiro and the challenges of a digital community currency governance: requirements, codes and data’ International Journal of Community Currency Research Volume 24 (Summer 2020) 77-88; http://www.ijccr.net; ISSN 1325-9547; DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2020.013

Abstract

Building on empirical material from 6 months ethnographically inspired fieldwork in Málaga Común, a mutual credit community currency in Southern Spain, the paper uses Ostrom’s (1991) theoretical framework on common-pool resources to look deeper into the provision and appropriation dynamics in the currency scheme. Particular attention is put into the sources of inequality in members’ provision and appropriation capacities. Findings suggest that, embedded as community currencies are in the conventional economy, the sources of inequality from the conventional economy are also brought into the community currency. More particularly, private ownership and specialised complex skills lie behind members’ unequal capacity to earn community currency in relation to their spending needs. The paper ends by outlining some elements that would need attention when designing the governance institutions of community currency schemes that aim to overcome the inequality brought in by these currencies’ embeddedness in the conventional economy.

Keywords

Mutual credit currency, inequality, Ostrom, resource system vs. flow of resource units; provision/appropriation ratio, common-pool resource.

To cite this article: Barinaga, E (2019) ‘Transforming or reproducing an unequal economy? Solidarity and inequality in a community currency’ International Journal of Community Currency Research 23 Issue 2 (Summer 2019) 2-16; http://www.ijccr.net; ISSN 1325-9547; DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.15133/j.ijccr.2019.010

IJCCR

International Journal of Community Currency Research

Tag: common-pool resource

Transforming or reproducing an unequal economy? Solidarity and inequality in a community currency

Abstract

Keywords