Social Space for Self-Organising: An Exploratory Study of Timebanks in Finland and in the UK
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7577/njsr.2148Keywords:
time banks, community building, alternative economies, social ontology, governance, volunteerismAbstract
The article examines the challenges to self-organisation and upscaling of alternative economies from the viewpoint of defending and negotiating social space. Timebanks in Finland and the UK are presented as examples, analysing the difference of defending such social space in the contexts of a traditional welfare state (in the case of Finland) and an austerity-driven government with a “Big Society” ideology (in the case of UK). Both systems of government present different kinds of pressures on timebanks, pushing them to a given ontological categories and to action in accordance with pre-defined political goals. This difference, along with timebank reactions and the question of prospects of opening ontological space, is analysed through material from observation, interviews with timebanks activists and brokers, and survey data from timebank users.
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Policy Failures. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
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Seyfang, G. (2004). Time banks: Rewarding community self-help in the inner city?
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economy
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Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University
Press.
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Collaborative Consumption Is Changing the Way We Live. London: Collins.
Bollier, D., & Helfrich, S. (Eds.). (2012). Wealth of the Commons. A World Beyond Market
and State. Amherst, Mass.: Levellers Press.
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Paid Employment. York, UK: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
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healthcare. Stroud: Timebanking UK.
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Economics Foundation.
Boyle, D., Slay, J., & Stephens, L. (2010). Public Services Inside Out. Putting co-
Production into Practice. London: NESTA / New Economics Foundation.
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Co-production into the Mainstream. London: NESTA / New Economics
Foundation.
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Washington, DC: Essential Books.
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Community. Retrieved from http://trustcurrency.blogspot.fi/2009/12/its-coreeconomy-
stupid-open-letter-to.html
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Retrieved from https://www.community-exchange.org/home/how-it-works/whywe-
need-a-new-money/
CES [Community Exchange System]. (2017b). The Problems with Conventional Money.
Retrieved from https://www.community-exchange.org/home/qanda/theproblems-
with-conventional-money/
Callon, M., & Muniesa, F. (2005). Peripheral vision: Economic markets as calculative
Collective devices. Organization Studies, 26(8), 1229–50.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840605056393
Collom, E., Lasker, J., & Kyriacou, C. (2012). Equal Time, Equal Value. Farnham:
Ashgate.
Coote, A. (2010). The Great Transition: Social Justice and the Core Economy. London:
New Economics Foundation.
Coote, A. (2011). Big society and the new austerity. In M. Stott (Ed.), The Big Society
challenge (pp. 82–94). Cardiff: Keystone Development Trust.
DBIS [Department for Business, Innovation and Skills]. (2015). Independent Review of
the Sharing Economy: Government Response. Retrieved from
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/4
14111/bis-15-172-government-response-to-the-independent-review-of-thesharing-
economy.pdf
Douglas, J. (1985). Creative Interviewing. London: Sage.
DWP [Department of Work and Pensions] (2015). Department of Work and Pensions
Statement on Timebanking. Retrieved from
http://www.timebanking.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/DWPStatement-
Flyer.pdf
Eskelinen, T., Kovanen, S., & van der Wekken, R. (2017). Self-organisation in solidarity
economies. The Finnish Journal of Urban Studies, 55(3), 76–80.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Fontana, A., & Prokos, A. (2007). The Interview. From Formal to Postmodern. Walnut
Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Forest Time Bank (2010). Timebanking and Your Benefits. Retrieved from
https://foresttimebank.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/benefits-and-volunteeringv5-
0.pdf
Geels, F., & Raven, R. (2006). Non-linearity and expectations in niche-development
trajectories: Ups and downs in Dutch biogas development (1973–2003).
Technological Analysis and Strategic Management, 18(3/4), 375–392.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09537320600777143
Gibson-Graham, J.-K. (2008). Diverse economies: Performative practices for ‘other
worlds’. Progress in Human Geography, 32(5), 613–632
https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132508090821
Goodwin, N., Nelson, J., Ackerman, F., & Weisskopf, T. (2003). Microeconomics in
Context. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Guest, G., MacQueen, K., & Namey, E. (2012). Applied Thematic Analysis. London:
Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483384436
Healy, S. (2009). Alternative economies. In R. Kitchin & N. Thrift (Eds.), International
encyclopedia of human geography (pp. 338–344). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-008044910-4.00132-2
Holstein, J., & Gubrium, J. (1995). The Active Interview. London: Sage.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-008044910-4.00132-2
Joutsenvirta, M. (2016). A practice approach to the institutionalization of economic
degrowth. Ecological Economics, 128, 23–32.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.04.006
Kawulich, B. (2005). Participant observation as a data collection method. Forum:
Qualitative Social Research, 6(2), art.43
Laamanen, M., & den Hond, F. (2015). Prefigurative partial organization in local social
movements: Examining decided and emergent order in a time bank. Proceedings
from the 31st European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium (EGOS).
Larsen, C. A. (2007). How welfare regimes generate and erode social capital. The impact
of underclass phenomena. Comparative Politics, 40(1), 83–102.
https://doi.org/10.5129/001041507X12911361134479
Lasker, J., & Collom, E. (2011). Time banking and health: The role of a community
currency organization in enhancing well-being. Health Promotion Practice, 12(1),
102–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839909353022
Lawson, T. (2015). A conception of social ontology. In S. Pratten (Ed.), Social ontology
and modern economics (pp. 19–52). Oxon: Routledge.
Lietaer, B. (2001). The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World.
London: Random House.
Lietaer, B., & Belgin, S. (2011). New Money for a New World. Boulder, CO: Qiterra Press.
Miller, J., & Glassner, B. (2011). The ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’: Finding realities in
interviews. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 99–112).
London: Sage.
Mitchell, W., & Muysken, J. (2008). Full Employment Abandoned. Shifting Sands and
Policy Failures. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
https://doi.org/10.4337/9781848441422
North, P. (2007). Money and Liberation: The Micropolitics of the Alternative Currency
Movement. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: Polycentric governance of complex
economic systems. American Economic Review, 100(3), 641–72.
https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.3.641
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions
for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807763
Ozanne, L. (2010). Learning to exchange time. B
enefits and obstacles to time banking.
International Journal of Community Currency Research, 14, 1–16.
Parks, R., Baker, P., Kiser, L., Oakerson, R., Ostrom, E., Ostrom, V., & Percy, S. (1981).
Consumers as co-producers of public services. Some economic and institutional
considerations. Policy Studies Journal, 9(7), 1001–1011.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.1981.tb01208.x
Ralph, N., Birks, M., & Chapman, Y. (2014). Contextual positioning: Using documents
as extant data in grounded theory research. SAGE Open, 4(3), 1–7.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014552425
Raven, R. (2012). Analysing emerging sustainable energy niches in Europe: A strategic
niche management perspective. In G. Verbong & D. Loorbach (Eds.), Governing
the energy transition: Reality, illusion or necessity? (pp. 125–151). Abingdon:
Routledge.
Rothstein, B. (2001). Social capital in the social democratic welfare state. Politics and
Society, 29(2), 207–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329201029002003
Searle, J. (1995). The construction of Social Reality. New York: The Free Press.
Seyfang, G. (2003). Growing cohesive communities one favour at a time: Social
exclusion, active citizenship and time banks. International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research, 27(3), 699–706.
Seyfang, G. (2004). Time banks: Rewarding community self-help in the inner city?
Community Development Journal, 39(1), 62–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-
2427.00475
Seyfang, G., & Longhurst, N. (2016). What influences the diffusion of grassroots
innovations for sustainability? Investigating community currency niches.
Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 28(1), 1–23.
Seyfang, G., & Smith, K. (2002). The Time of Our Lives: Using Time Banking for
Neighbourhood Renewal and Community Capacity Building. London: New
Economics Foundation.
Simon, M. (2010). Your Money or Your Life: Time for Both. Stroud: Timebanking UK.
Smith, A., & Raven, R. (2012). What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in
transitions to sustainability. Research Policy, 41(6), 1025–103.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2011.12.012
Smith, M. (2010). From big government to big society: Changing the state-society
balance. Parliamentary Affairs, 63(4), 818–833.
https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsq023
Social Value UK. (2017). Social Value UK. Retrieved from http://www.socialvalueuk.org/
Spice. (2017). Spice. Retrieved from http://www.justaddspice.org
Stadin Aikapankki. (2017). Miten Kaikki Alkoi? Retrieved from
https://stadinaikapankki.wordpress.com/stadin-aikapankin-toiminnasta/stapperustustarina/
Stephens, L., Ryan-Collins, J., & Boyle, D. (2008). Co-production: A Manifesto for
Growing the Core Economy. London: New Economics Foundation.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1994). Grounded theory methodology: An overview. In N.
Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.) Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 273–284).
London: Sage.
Suomen Aikapankit. (2017). Aikapankit Suomessa. Retrieved from
http://www.aikapankit.fi/?page_id=13
Timebanking UK. (2017). What is Timebanking? Retrieved from
http://www.timebanking.org/what-is-timebanking/
Utting, P. (2015). Introduction: The challenge of scaling up social and solidarity economy.
In P.
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2018-10-30
How to Cite
Eskelinen, T. (2018). Social Space for Self-Organising: An Exploratory Study of Timebanks in Finland and in the UK. Nordic Journal of Social Research, 9, 89–109. https://doi.org/10.7577/njsr.2148
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