Community Currencies

Community currencies, in common with other grassroots innovations, are founded on the notion that marginalized people hold the key to their own solutions. These initiatives focus on mobilizing local resources and designing governance structures that empower communities. In this approach, communities act as the driving force rather than simply being the target beneficiaries.

Our research on community currencies explores these grassroots financial mechanisms with the goal of fostering inclusive economic growth. By empowering marginalized communities, this research programme examines how local resources can be leveraged and governance structures crafted to strengthen community agency and autonomy. Our research intersects finance, social innovation, and economic development, aiming to illuminate how alternative currencies can contribute to a more equitable economy.

Some of the research projects in this research area include:

Grassroots financial innovations for inclusive economic growth
Special-purpose money: Complementary digital currencies and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Local Currency in Malmö: A social innovation for a more inclusive labour market

Some of our most recent publications:

Barinaga, E. (2024). Remaking money for a sustainable future: Money Commons. Policy Press.

Kiaka, R. D., Oloko, M. O., Ocampo, J., & Barinaga, E. (2024). “Gaming the System”: How Communities Strategize Around Currencies, Convertibility and Cash Transfers in Kenya. European Journal of Social Sciences Studies, 9(6), 34-58. https://doi.org/10.46827/ejsss.v9i6.1689

Barinaga, E. (2024). Parallel Depreciating Money: Mr Unterguggenberger’s Prescription to the Economic Ills of the Great Depression. Money Doctors Around the Globe: A Historical Perspective, 283.

Barinaga, E., & Zapata Campos, M. J. (2024). Tinkering with malleable grassroots infrastructures: Kenyan local currencies in informal settlements. Urban Geography, 45(5), 798-817. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2023.2239658

Zapata Campos, M. J., Barinaga, E., Dimba Kiaka, R., & Ocampo, J. (2023). Nothing to lose: the rationales of grassroots financial innovations in contexts of extreme scarcity. Social Enterprise Journal, 19(2), 193-212. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-08-2022-0074

Barinaga, E. (2023). From evaluation to valorising: Three moments in the making of social impact value. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2023.2262158

José Zapata Campos, M., Barinaga, E., Kain, J. H., Oloko, M., & Zapata, P. (2023). Organising grassroots infrastructure: The (in) visible work of organisational (in) completeness. Urban Studies, 60(1), 126-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980211062818

Barinaga, E. (2020). A route to commons-based democratic monies? Embedding the governance of money in traditional communal institutions. Frontiers in Blockchain, 3, 575851. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2020.575851

Barinaga, E. (2019). Transforming or reproducing an unequal economy?: Solidarity and inequality in a community currency. International Journal of Community Currency Research, 23(2), 2-16. https://doi.org/10.15133/J.IJCCR.2019.010