Informal Currencies as a Response to Economic Crisis

货币联盟的创建是为了通过促进人员、货物、服务和资本的自由流动来促进一组成员国之间的政治、社会和经济一体化。这项由该奖项支持的研究问道，当货币联盟的一个成员国面临经济危机，其公民部分通过建立自己的货币体系来应对时，会发生什么？它们只是展示了人类的韧性和适应性吗？或者，他们也在挑战拥有一个正式的共享市场和相关货币的想法，而这些市场和相关货币与人们认同的国家不相对应？现在，全球正在朝着更深层次的经济一体化迈进，因此这些都是我们所有人面临的重要问题。纽约市立大学博士生海伦·帕纳乔奥波洛斯将在Ida Susser博士的指导下，通过15个月的希腊人种学研究来解决这些问题。希腊是进行这项研究的合适地点，因为在2009年，面对无力偿还的债务，希腊政府制定了紧缩措施，作为获得外部财政援助的条件。紧随紧缩措施之后的是经济萧条，失业率大幅上升，以及普遍的钱荒。在这种背景下，人们建立了各种货币替代方案，以获得他们在没有欧元的情况下生存所需的商品和服务，而不是他们的货币联盟--欧元区--的货币。这些替代货币包括当地交易所交易计划，如易货贸易、时间银行和相互信用清算，以及加密货币，如比特币和自由币。研究人员将在三个地点进行研究，每个地点都与不同的替代货币系统有关。她将通过广泛的案例分析、访谈、参与者观察、档案研究、文本分析和在线数据库分析来收集数据。这项研究的发现将完善关于货币、国家主权和公民忠诚度之间关系的社会科学理论。它们也将引起政策制定者的兴趣，他们需要了解货币如何影响社会和政治生活，以及人们如何理解货币和价值。

Monetary unions are created to foster political, social, and economic integration among a group of member states by facilitating the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. The research supported by this award asks, What happens when one of the monetary union's member nations faces economic crisis and its citizens respond in part by establishing monetary systems of their own? Are they just demonstrating human resiliency and adaptability? Or are they also challenging the very idea of having a formal shared market and associated currency that do not correspond to the nation with which people identify? There is now a global movement towards greater economic integration, so these are important questions for all of us.City University of New York doctoral student, Helen Panagiotopoulos, with the supervision of Dr. Ida Susser, will address these questions through 15 months of ethnographic research in Greece. Greece is an appropriate site for the research because in 2009, faced with debts it could not pay, the Greek government instituted austerity measures as a condition of obtaining outside financial assistance. The austerity measures were followed by economic depression, large increases in unemployment, and a widepsread shortage of money. In this context, people established a variety of currency alternatives to acquire the goods and services they needed to survive, without euros, the currency of their monetary union, the Eurozone. These alternative currencies include Local Exchange Trading Schemes, such as barter, time banking, and mutual credit clearing, and crypto currencies such as Bitcoin and Free Coin. The researcher will carry out research in three sites, each of which is associated with a different alternative currency system. She will collect data through extended case analysis, interviews, participant observation, archival research, text analysis and analysis of online databases. Findings from this research will improve social scientific theory of the relationship between currencies, national sovereignty, and citizen allegiance. They will also be of interest to policy makers who need to understand how currencies shape social and political life and how people understand money and value.