Local Currencies Grow During Economic Recession

New mobilities can also involve the movement of currency, especially in the move from the 'new' to the 'old': as in here, a return to local currency trading.

The gentle mountain slopes of New England isolate the Berkshires, creating a peaceful remoteness in this southern Massachusetts region. Today, the Berkshires is giving rise to a new wave of free thinking. The region's alternative to the U.S. dollar, Berkshares, is among the most successful of the country's local currencies.

Since the currency's launch two years ago, five local banks have printed more than 2 million paper notes. About 185,000 are currently in circulation, according to Susan Witt, a Berkshare co-founder.

The Berkshires is not alone. More communities are creating their own "complementary" currencies during the current economic crisis in an effort to keep wealth in their region. Witt is now fielding calls from around the world, she said, especially from the United States and United Kingdom.

"In the last four years, there has been a renewed interest in local economy, local production," said Witt, executive director of the E. F. Schumacher Society, a Massachusetts-based think tank focused on local production. "It just skyrocketed with the collapse of the global economy."

I think it possible that we will see an increased move towards localised communities and independent trading/mobility systems as a way of emerging from crashing global markets.


Read article at - 'Local Currencies Grow During Economic Recession'

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Wiki politics

Online journal 'Re-Public' has gone live with a new special issue on Wiki politics. It covers a range of short essays from open source politics, to Panarchy, and collective intelligence. Some examples are:

Ward Cunningham - Wiki and the rise of gift economies

Paul Hartzog - Panarchy and the wiki-fication of politics: The age of panarchy is upon us

Kingsley Dennis - The new agoras: ‘Wikis’ as a form of collective intelligence

A highly recommended read!

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Emergency calls to accept photos and videos

Open the Future has this piece on Co-opting the Participatory Panopticon? which looks at the recent move for some US emergency call centres to accept pictures and videos from phones:

The city of New York, in a rather clever move, has decided to equip its 911 (emergency) and 311 (non-emergency) call centers with the ability to receive cameraphone pictures and videos.

This is one of those developments that makes so much sense, it's a wonder that nobody made it happen earlier. I have no doubt that we'll see other cities adopt this approach in the months to come, both in the US and internationally. As much as it has the potential for frivolous or malicious use -- just as regular 911 calls do -- it has the potential to give first responders a better idea of an emergency situation, allowing the professionals and the civilians to work together to evaluate conditions.

This goes some way towards the notion of sousveillance - the idea of the participatory panopticon.

Prospero - reflecting evolving public participation

Paul B Hartzog has a new project that examines 'the community as a commons' and looks into promoting 'a sense of shared fate and shared identity'. He says that 'as mobility increases, information about how a community moves into, out of, and through its spaces (such as public commons) can be a useful source of community feedback. The project is titled Prospero:

Prospero is an infrastructure to enable public displays to reflect evolving public participation.

The objectives of the Prospero project arise from two primary motivations: one descriptive, the other normative. First, technologies that foster cooperation enhance our relationship to our surroundings. Many of these technologies incorporate user feedback in real-time.

Read more at the Prospero Blog

Looks like an interesting venture to keep an eye on!