RAMICS Newsletter #1 RESEARCH ASSOCIATION ON MONETARY INNOVATION AND COMMUNITY AND COMPLEMENTARY MONETARY SYSTEMS March 2017 1. Editorial developed by its members, RAMICS does not intend to develop its own research programmes. Rather it aims to Dear members, As you may know, RAMICS was created on work like any other international academic the 30th of October 2015 in Salvador da research association, whatever the academic Bahia by the collective will of 32 persons field (see for example ESHET or EAEPE). gathered for the 3rd International conference on Social and complementary currencies. To take this forward, the constituent We have slowly achieved some of the goals general assembly named a management set back then. committee composed of Georgina Gómez as Secretary, Rolf Schröder as Treasurer, We are very pleased to launch our first Ariadne Scalfoni Rigo and Makoto Nishibe newsletter since the creation of RAMICS. as other members, and myself as President. This is the opportunity to remind readers of the origins of the association, to report on We were proud to start this adventure and what has been done since, and to outline we were aware of the responsibility we had. some prospects. Please enjoy! We had to build everything in this new house, starting with… the house itself! What’s in a name? RAMICS stands for “Research Association RAMICS’ family on Monetary Innovation and community Well, actually, not everything was to be built and complementary systems”. from the ground up. RAMICS in seeking to achieve its aim as an association that As stated in the Preamble of RAMICS promotes research, does so through three constitution: basic pillars, taking stock of already existing “The mission of the Association is to dynamics. These are: promote academic research on diverse monetary and social exchange systems”. It 1. A biennial conference. Conferences have focuses especially “on innovative schemes been the first steps before the creation of that contribute to economic diversity, social RAMICS: in Lyon first (2011), then in The cohesion, democratic participation and Hague (2013). The creation of RAMICS in environmental sustainability, like Salvador da Bahia (2015) led to formally complementary and community currencies.” establish this principle of a biennial And: “Its main aim is to bring together the conference. Such a regular gathering is of ideas of a number of theorists and uttermost important: in the realm of CCs, theoretical traditions in various scientific with a few thousands of local and specific disciplines to understand in a relevant way cases, with a scattered community of the proliferation of currencies since the turn academic and non-academic researchers, of the millennium. The present plurality of with often problems of means of payment and units of account academic acknowledgement of the works of follows multiple historical precedents and scholars, there is a need to constitute and the association fosters research that would maintain international networks. recognize the role of history and Conferences make people meet, discuss evolutionary processes in the formation of research and build networks. monetary systems within capitalist and non- capitalist economies. It is then focussed on The next conference will be in the varieties of money and currency systems, Barcelona (May, 10-14th), organized by that it aims at analysing in theory as well as August Corrons at the Open university of in policy, notably through connexions with Catalunya (Universitat Oberta de practitioners, policymakers and various Catalunya). A great event happening observers of these systems.” soon (see the presentation of this forthcoming conference in this newsletter). As a volunteer association, which aims at promoting academic-oriented research 2. The International Journal of Community currency research, RAMICS Newsletter #1 – March 2017 1 RAMICS Newsletter #1 RESEARCH ASSOCIATION ON MONETARY INNOVATION AND COMMUNITY AND COMPLEMENTARY MONETARY SYSTEMS March 2017 founded in 1997 by Colin Williams, then improved. A reason to follow and support directed by Gill Seyfang, and, since 2015, by us! Georgina Gómez. (see some news from the IJCCR in this newsletter). The IJCCR is the Next general assembly only journal that focuses on complementary The Barcelona Conference will be the and community currencies. It does so by occasion to organize the 2016-17 general promoting academic research (from any assembly of the association. It should be discipline) as well as practitioners organized on Friday, 12th of May, 11:30- reflexivity, through an open access journal. 13:30. We look forward to gathering This media is central in the field. RAMICS membership! 3. The CC-Literature Databank, created Jérôme Blanc, President for RAMICS and curated by Rolf Schröder. Once again, this is a unique resource in the field, that 2. Get Ready! Barcelona should be the first stop for any person who is starting research. This is an exciting Conference to come resource and will be a continuous project and regularly updated. It reflects the patient Forthcoming: the IVth International collection of references, their comments and Conference on Social and links to the resources themselves, in English Complementary Currencies (Barcelona, as well as in many other languages. This UOC, 10-14 May 2017) peculiarity should remind us that neither CC schemes nor CC literature is confined to Call for papers on English, and, by the way, every biennial conferences has promoted, up to “Money, Consciousness and Values Barcelona’s, presentations and papers both in English, as today’s lingua franca, and in for Social Change” one or more languages (French, Spanish, This conference is focussed on 3 field topics, Portuguese). (see a list of references in order to accommodate different and published in 2016, and a focus on one of multidisciplinary approaches: them, Marie Fare’s recently published book). Field 1: Money, consciousness and classification of CCs, typology and RAMICS, to date values. A field that accommodates works The biennial conferences, the IJCCR and the related to the reflections in terms of money CC-Literature databank make the and the capitalist model, proposals of foundations of RAMICS family. You can monetary and financial system reform, breathe in the family atmosphere through values and motivations related to the money the new common visual identity we gave to and CCs, awareness-building and social RAMICS, IJCCR and CC-Literature psychology in terms of money and CCs… websites. Field 2: Real experiences. A field that accommodates works related to the A website has thus been created. presentations of CC experiences and Information on its activity will be put online practices, economic, social and on a regular basis. Since its creation, it has environmental evaluation and impact of partnered with a few conferences, in SSC, innovation and technologies related to order to contribute to spreading CC CCs… research. A twitter account has been opened Field 3: Institutions and public (@ramics_asso). We solicited Teodoro policies. A field that accommodates works Criscione for a volunteer mission to improve related to the reflections and realities on RAMICS communication skills. Separate SCC for the transition towards other socio- from RAMICS but connected to its logics, economic models from the very institutions August Corrons goes on preparing and public policies. Barcelona’s conference. Many things still need to be developed and Results of the call RAMICS Newsletter #1 – March 2017 2 RAMICS Newsletter #1 RESEARCH ASSOCIATION ON MONETARY INNOVATION AND COMMUNITY AND COMPLEMENTARY MONETARY SYSTEMS March 2017 Proposal submissions are now closed. committed to achieving the widest possible 140 abstracts have been validated: coverage of topics and disciplines pertinent - 60,7% in English, 32,1% in Spanish, 5,0% to monetary innovation, local community in Portuguese and 2,2% in French exchange mechanisms (with or without - 67,9% from Europe, 18,3% from Latin means of payment), and complementary America, 6,9% from North America, 5,3% currencies. IJCCR guarantees a double from Asia and 1,6% from Africa blind peer review process to help authors improve their papers to standards that Schedule would constitute an addition to our present The presentations linked with this Call for state of knowledge. Papers will take place from Wed, 10th to Friday, 12th May 2017. There will be at least Professionalization three parallel session lines, one of which will In its 21 years of life, IJCCR has become the be held in the event hall and the others backbone of academic research on in neighbouring rooms. Access to this community currencies, with over 150 articles academic part of the conference will require openly accessible to other researchers, registration and payment. policy-makers and the general public. For From 13th May to 14th May, access will be students and government officials, it is one free. of the first places to start a literature search that is sufficiently reliable, independent and Next steps can reasonably sustain the criticism of Complete articles or communications should others. We proudly invite researchers to be sent by 15th April 2017. Papers can be in contribute to the common pool of knowledge English, Spanish, French or Portuguese. offered in www.ijccr.net. Please read our guidelines for authors on how to Registration submit your papers and become part of our https://symposium.uoc.edu/event_de collective learning. We also welcome tail/3642/tickets.html colleagues who would like to support the journal by formatting, proof-reading, peer Publication reviewing and other tasks of the publishing Three special issues should be published in process. the IJCCR, linked to the three fields that IJCCR is constantly striving to improve its have been presented. Such issues will position as a research outlet where everyone include a selection of the most interesting would like to publish. In collaboration with articles to be presented in each one of the the libraries of the Universities of Delft and fields. Rotterdam in the Netherlands, August Corrons,member of the IJCCR Editorial Correspondent: prof.