A monetary intermediary to create territorial proximity: the structuring of a business network around the local currency eusko in the Basque Country[Un intermédiaire monétaire créateur de proximités territoriales : la structuration d’un réseau d’entreprises autour de la monnaie locale eusko au Pays Basque]

In this article, we investigate the role played by a local currency in the construction of organised proximities between local businesses. By defining the local currency as an intermediation operator, we specify the roles played by this device among the economic actors who join it. The article is based on an analysis of the durability and intensity of business-to-business relationships in local currency and the meaning that actors give to these relationships. The study of quantitative and qualitative data from the case of the eusko in the Basque Country shows that the currency fulfils several intermediation functions that generate norms, values, practices and representations shared by the actors, giving them the feeling of being close. The circulation of money pushes some firms to look for new local partners in order to reuse the local money they receive from their customers. This incentive has contrasting effects depending on the business sector, but the analysis suggests that beyond commercial links, participation in the monetary community produces specific relationships between businesses. Indeed, the use of the local currency generates, over the course of exchanges, specific practices and shared meanings in professional relationships. As a matter of fact, businesses have a variety of uses for the local currency, including business-to-business trade but also solidarity practices. By creating distinctive practices within its users community, the local currency generates organised proximities. The analysis of the uses of the local currency by the entrepreneurs also reveals the centrality of a moral dimension in the construction of these forms of proximity.