Exchange networks & parallel currencies on the map of Greece: Geographical patterns and schemes’ activity

This is a working paper which belongs to a greater ongoing field research project concerning economic activity in Greece which is performed without the use of any official currency. The scope of the paper is to present the geographical dispersion of the schemes studied within Greece and to discuss the issues raised by the connection of the schemes to the locality of their users.

Several patterns already emerge, concerning which schemes work or develop in which areas and which areas seem void of any working initiatives. Big urban centres seem to attract most of the schemes or at least, cities provide the base for a scheme to develop. The nature and structure of each scheme seems to affect its geographical expansion or its localisation.

Therefore, several questions are raised: What makes the scheme members’ decide about the localisation or the expansion of a scheme? How do geographical conditions affect those decisions and how does economic activity within the schemes affect their function in space? How the scope and structure of a scheme might influence its geographical picture?

Complementary currency Lyon