Major Grant for Counter Currency Lab

Major grant has been awarded to the Counter Currency Laboratory

Daromir Rudnyckyj received a Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a new research project, “The Future of Money.”  The project is, in part, based at the Counter Currency Laboratory in UVic’s Department of Anthropology.  Dr. Rudnyckyj will be working with co-Principal Investigator Chris Vasantkumar of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia to examine how money is changing today and what the implications of these changes might be on human life, political forms, and social relationships.  New monetary forms ranging from cryptocurrencies and state-issued digital currencies to local and alternative exchange systems to mobile money and other forms of cashless payment portend significant changes to money and society.  Today money is mainly assumed to be state-issued everyday currency, such as dollars, pounds or yen. As the dominance of state currencies appears to be waning, it is unclear how emergent forms will affect the ways in which we use money, the types of social relations they produce, and the implications for state governance. The Future of Money Project seeks enhance understanding of money’s future forms via comparative research, developing a collaborative international network, and training of students in the social scientific study of money.