through four different emissions. The first one was a printout modelled on old local notes that used to circulate in Totnes in the early nineteenth century. These were simply given out by Rob Hopkins and accepted by various shops without any backing (although the amount of the issue was extremely small, only three-hundred pounds). In this regard, the first ‘Totnes Pound’ was similar in some ways to a LETS scheme, as it was not backed by national currency but rather relied on the availability of a circle of traders and buyers available to be engaged by the new paper token. On a second issue, more notes were printed, this time in exchange for national currency, and in a smaller format to allow these to fit better in tills. However, they were issued below parity, meaning that consumers could buy 1 pound worth of goods at participating shops, with the Totnes Pounds being redeemable in pound sterling for only 95 pence. This was an attempt to increase the stickiness of the local notes, ensuring that people would not redeem them so easily, so that they would remain in circulation. However, the unexpected outcome of one such move was to discourage participating businesses from enabling complete payments in Totnes Pounds, which would have meant, upon redemption in pound sterling, them taking a 5% hit on the sale price. As a consequence, business owners began allowing only a percentage of the purchase price to be fulfilled with Totnes Pounds.32 This was also caused by the fact that, the currency being embodied only in paper notes, limited trading (if any at all) could take place between businesses. Hence, money would accumulate with them and they would then have to redeem it in sterling, effectively turning the exchange rate in a discount given to consumers. This shortcoming stemming from below-parity issue led to the third emission, consisting of another one-pound note (the design of which was further revamped to give a more money-like look) issued at parity with pound sterling.
During the writing of this book, a new, fourth issue, took place. This time it involved multiple denominations, an accompanying website advertising participating shops and discounts available to users of the pound, as well as plans to develop an electronic currency. In fact, the Totnes Pound was earmarked as a recipient of funding aimed at rolling out electronic currency technology, in partnership with the Bristol Pound scheme.33
In between these successive emissions, the experience in Totnes sparked emulation around other Transition initiatives, the most far-reaching of which have occurred in Bristol and Brixton. In either of these cases, paper notes were accompanied by an electronic infrastructure enabling payments by text, as well as direct money transfers through a web interface. Moreover, in Bristol, all accounts are held by the local credit union, hence benefitting from deposit protection insurance through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Despite the larger scale, both of these initiatives are still relatively minute compared to the size of the urban economies they are embedded in.
To return to Totnes, it is interesting to notice how – until funding was secured through a partnership with the Bristol Pound – an electronic currency had not been planned for the fourth issue of the Totnes Pound, due to its excessive cost. Indeed, the issuing of local and complementary currencies poses real questions of resourcing. Since the costs of printing and setting up payment systems cannot be recouped from the backing that is received in exchange for the currency upon its issue (this has to be held in order to ensure redeemability), the printing and design of notes has to be self-funded. This is done typically through a mix of grants, donations as well as by sale of numbered sets of notes for the collector market.
In ‘official’ presentations of alternative currency schemes, the focus is often on how, through the use of an alternative currency, more localised trade can occur and, therefore, the local circuit of economic exchange becomes less dependent on sourcing from outside and consequently more resilient. This is how alternative currencies ‘fit’ into the inaugural narrative of Transition as a transition ‘away’ from the conditions that make peak oil and climate change a threat to the biosphere and to human communities (complementary currencies seek to tackle elongated supply chains, which remain practicable only in a world thoroughly dependent on fossil fuels).
This orientation towards addressing peak oil and climate change, however, seems to be only partially borne out in practice. Suffice it to mention the remarks by Longhurst, a researcher involved in the launching of the Totnes Pound, who regrets that the organising team that recruited businesses into the scheme was not more forthcoming about the goal of building local resilience as a response to peak oil.34 Instead, the Totnes Pound might have mainly been understood as ‘a way to promote the town or as a local loyalty scheme’.35 This ambivalence, I suggest, goes at the heart of the problem that Transition faces as it unfolds: of sustaining everyday experiences (such as spending money) through the discursive and material resources that compose an emerging Transition culture. Correlative to this is the challenge of nurturing a parallel appreciation of the experiential coherence and continuity existing between different Transition practices; something that can set in motion further realisations and lifestyle changes (in other words, making sure that people doing the spending can become sensitised to other concerns that animate the development of Transition, such as – in this particular case – peak oil and climate change). Hence the self-consciousness, that Longhurst puts into words, about the degree to which the Totnes Pound offers not just a way to bring money, and the exchanges it affords, into Transition, but also to cue the wider milieu of Transition through money and consumption choices. Widening engagement with currency fulfils the first prong; the second one demands that the awareness obtained through use of the Totnes Pound enable inroads into the wider moving of Transition, so as to elicit a more encompassing shift in cultural attachments. An instance of this occurring was the meeting mentioned earlier, held by the Totnes Pound organising group. At the end of that meeting, a discussion ensued about the process by which it had been chaired, in the light of the ‘mindful’ meeting techniques that are one of the distinctive qualities of Inner Transition: here was a transaction that sharpened the perception of Inner Transition as a site of cultural elaboration that commands attention across the different domains of activity enfolded in the Transition milieu, including currency experimentation.
Another way in which something like the Totnes Pound has the potential to slowly challenge ‘taken for granted’ attachments and draw participants towards the wider set of commitments and concerns animating the journey of Transition, is by signposting a geography for ‘ethical trading’ on the high street. So, for instance, it is the case that participating businesses present a sign outside of their window that discloses their membership in the scheme. In the case of the Bristol Pound, this signposting was done for the first time with a Google Map that marks all the shops in Bristol that adhere to the scheme. This outward display, coupled with recruitment policies that try to involve only local businesses,36 effectively demarcates an ‘ethical trading space’. Engaging in that trading space can be the source of puzzlements (e.g. in terms of the food stores that do not feature in it, such as fast food chains and supermarkets) through which to nurture a critical consciousness – say about food production, seasonality and localisation – and a determination to address such concerns by exploring further ways to practice Transition.
In this sense, local and complementary currencies (apart from their theoretical presentation as tools to promote economic relocalisation, which may or may not be borne out in practice, given the relatively limited turnover of existing schemes) are very interesting tools for nurturing a Transition culture of consumption. By the denomination as ‘pounds’ and the ‘look and feel’ that makes them more like notes than like vouchers,37 local notes attempt to catch the attention of people who are engaged in the minimal capacity of users of money. The curiosity that this sparks, about the possibility that a local currency may even exist, is one of the factors that are orchestrated to encourage people to experiment. This is evident in the attitude that Totnes Pound organisers adopted to persuade some shops: asking them ‘Why not?’, given the complete parity with the pound sterling and the full backing. Green Books, the publisher of the Transition manuals, even used to include a Totnes Pound note in copies of the books they sent out for review. This was, once more, an interesting approach to using the pounds, which shows an implicit understanding of their importance as tools that can introduce a productive element of puzzlement in taken-for-granted routines.38
Upon accepting the initial invitation to use a local currency,
