Organizing Money : The process of implementing a complementary currency in a context of scarcity

This study explores the implementation of a complementary currency – an alternative approach to addressing the problem of poverty caused by the scarcity of conventional money. Complementary currencies can be defined as agreement within communities to use something different to a national currency as a standardized medium of exchange. Previous research has examined the various classifications and outcomes of complementary currencies, but more needs to be done to understand the processual and relational dynamics in complementary-currency projects.Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS), this study analyzes how relations between local communities, external actors, imaginaries, and payment technologies shape and are shaped in the process of implementing a complementary currency.Using a socio-technical perspective, this research traces the Grassroots Financial Innovation (GFI) project in Kenya, and the implementation of a complementary currency from 2018 to 2023. The study reveals the tensions between two political-economic ideas for how complementary currencies should function in a context of scarcity – one focused on aid distribution and market networks, the other on local adaptation and self-governance. Moreover, it shows how payment technologies serve to embed economic ideas through the monetary approaches and types of user participation they afford. Finally, it displays how socio-technical arrangements of money are constantly evolving, and demonstrates that while a complementary currency can be designed, unexpected behaviors can occur during its implementation.This study contributes to the current literature on complementary currencies by offering a novel approach to the study of their implementation. This study reframes implementation as an evolving set of organising activities conceptualized as modulating, representational, and vernacular. Moreover, this research introduces two different imaginaries of development – Market Inclusivism and Monetary Emancipation – and explores how these imaginaries shape and are shaped during the implementation of complementary currencies in the context of scarcity.