A monetary intermediary to create territorial proximity: the structuring of a business network around the local currency eusko in the Basque Country
Un intermédiaire monétaire créateur de proximités territoriales : la structuration d’un réseau d’entreprises autour de la monnaie locale eusko au Pays Basque
Résumé
In this article, we investigate the role played by a local currency in the construction of organised proximities between local businesses. By defining the local currency as an intermediation operator, we specify the roles played by this device among the economic actors who join it. The article is based on an analysis of the durability and intensity of business-to-business relationships in local currency and the meaning that actors give to these relationships. The study of quantitative and qualitative data from the case of the eusko in the Basque Country shows that the currency fulfils several intermediation functions that generate norms, values, practices and representations shared by the actors, giving them the feeling of being close. The circulation of money pushes some firms to look for new local partners in order to reuse the local money they receive from their customers. This incentive has contrasting effects depending on the business sector, but the analysis suggests that beyond commercial links, participation in the monetary community produces specific relationships between businesses. Indeed, the use of the local currency generates, over the course of exchanges, specific practices and shared meanings in professional relationships. As a matter of fact, businesses have a variety of uses for the local currency, including business-to-business trade but also solidarity practices. By creating distinctive practices within its users community, the local currency generates organised proximities. The analysis of the uses of the local currency by the entrepreneurs also reveals the centrality of a moral dimension in the construction of these forms of proximity.
L’article examine le rôle joué par une monnaie locale dans la construction de proximités organisées entre entreprises d’un même territoire. En définissant la monnaie locale comme un opérateur d’intermédiation, l’article s’attache à préciser les rôles joués par ce dispositif auprès des acteurs économiques qui s’y enrôlent. L’étude de données quantitatives et qualitatives issues du cas de l’eusko au Pays Basque montrent que la monnaie remplit plusieurs fonctions d’intermédiation qui génèrent de la proximité en activant des logiques d’appartenance et de similitude parmi les acteurs économiques engagés. L’analyse des usages de la monnaie locale par les entrepreneurs révèle en outre la centralité d’une dimension morale dans la construction de ces formes de proximité.