Table Of ContentRELATIONS AND CATEGORIES
Viviana A. Zelizer andCharles Tilly
I. Introduction
Duringthelate1990s,ateamofFrenchsocialresearchersledbyJean‐Michel
Servetinvestigatedwhatwasthenarapidlyspreadingformoforganizationin
France:theSyste`mesd’E´changeLocal(SEL).Theyconductedclosestudiesof
these proliferating local money groups in a number of urban and rural
communities.Annie,amemberofalocalmoneycircleinthePyrenees,told
themhow‘‘Intheregularsystem,Ihavecash,Ipay,Iamfree;intheSEL,Iam
notfree,Iforgearelation.’’Similarly,Ya60‐year‐oldretireefromtheSELof
la Garrigue reported: ‘‘The exchange [within the SEL] inevitably leads to
somethingelse,whilewhenIgivesomeonea100francnote,Ihandhimthe
100 franc note and it’s over. There we discuss what’s going on, politics, the
economy,theSEL’’(Servet,1999,p.144).
Annie and Y clearly see a sharp diVerence between economic transactions
occurring inside and outside the SEL. That boundary between insiders and
outsidersmatters.Itmattersbothbecausepeopleoneithersideoftheboundary
havediVerentrelationstoeachotherandbecausewhenmembersoftheSEL
crosstheboundarytointeractwithoutsiderstheychangetheirownbehavior.
The boundary, as members describe it, separates a local world of authentic
interpersonalsolidarityfromanotherworldtaintedbycommercialism.
Parallelmonetarysystemshaveexistedsincetheinventionofmoneymillen-
niaago.Thedistinctionbetween‘‘real’’money—legaltenderbackedbygov-
ernments—and alternative currencies took on serious consequences when
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2 ZelizerandTilly
statesbeganestablishingmonopoliesofmonetaryproductionduringthenine-
teenthcentury(Helleiner,1999).Butanideologicallytingedworldwidemove-
ment to create alternative local currencies of superior moral value only took
rootduringthe1980sandbegansproutingaroundtheglobeduringthe1990s.
Yet the movement grew fast. In his comprehensive survey of SEL‐like
localcurrencies,Je´roˆmeBlancestimates250,000membersofsuchorganiza-
tions across the world in the year 2000 (Blanc, 2000, p. 243). As of 2001, a
semioYcialinternationalwebsitelistsover1500groups(Lets‐Linkup,2005).
In one place afteranother on allthe inhabitedcontinents, peopleare draw-
ing boundaries and creating consequential insider–outsider categories by
establishing local monetary systems.
Local money provides just one example of a much more general process.
In a wide variety of situations, people engaged in everyday social interac-
tionestablishboundariesbetweeninsidersandoutsidersthatsustaincrucial
socialactivities.Thoseboundariesthencreateconsequentialconnectedcate-
gories—not only insiders and outsiders but also us and them, worthy and
unworthy, intimate and impersonal, congenial and threatening. To be sure,
generalcognitiveprocessesaVectperceptionanduseofthosecategories.But
thecategoriesthemselvesemergefromsocialinteraction,andtheircontents
depend on social interaction (Tilly, 2005b; Zelizer, 2005).
This chapter pursues that insight, first within the zone of money and
then outside. We return to local monies for a closer look, then move on to
parallels with legal tender, including a perplexing new currency, the euro.
Immigrant remittances provide a doorway into related phenomena, in this
case still mainly monetary, but now involving long‐distance and long‐term
creation ofcategories through complex social interaction.
Fromimmigrantremittanceswe turntoother formsofcategorycreation
inwhichmoneyoccupiesalesscentralplace:interpersonalnetworksoftrust
and relations between nationalism and citizenship. Each case illuminates a
diVerentaspect ofa general argument:
(cid:1) Socialinteractiongenerates,informs,andthenrespondstoasignificant
set of connected categories.
(cid:1) Those categories depend on interaction among three elements: (1)
socially maintained boundaries, (2) relations within the boundaries,
and (3) relationsacross theboundaries.
(cid:1) Theyregularlyinvolvementalaccountingsystems,ofwhichshort‐term
quid pro quo exchanges constitute onlyone special type.
(cid:1) People complement mental accounting systems with earmarking prac-
tices;theyestablishsubdivisionswithinostensiblyhomogeneousmoney
andothermediabysignalingcommitmentofmediasegmentstodistinct
relations and transactions.
RelationsandCategories 3
(cid:1) Relational work—the eVort of establishing, terminating, negotiating,
and transforming interpersonal relations—goes on continuously, shap-
ing boundaries, accounting systems, and categories.
By the end we hope to have established not that all categories result from
interpersonal interactions, much less that all categories are somehow essen-
tially social, but that coherent social processes regularly generate, deploy,
and alteran important set ofhuman categories.
II. Local Money
FromtheFrench‘‘graindesel’’andtheAustralian‘‘greendollars’’totheItalian
‘‘Mistho`s,’’theGermanTalent,theMexicanTlaloc,theArgentine‘‘cre´ditos,’’
theJapanese‘‘ecomoney,’’orthe‘‘Seeds’’ofMendocino,California,localcur-
rencies mark geographically circumscribed economies (see Helleiner, 1999,
2000; Powell, 2002; Rizzo, 1999; Schr oeder, 2002;S ervet, 1999; YenRivals,
2001). These c urrenc ies belong to wel‐lor ga ni ze d, lo ca liz ed , a n d vo lu nt ar y
groups that go by names such as SEL, local exchange and trading systems
(LETS),BancadelTempo(Bdt),SistemadiReciprocita` Indiretta(SRI),Club
delTrueque,Tauschring,andHOURS.
In all this bewildering variety of monetary groups, people are building
categoriesthatinsulateinternaloperationsoftheirsystemfromthekindsof
economic activities that go on outside. They do so via a series of elements:
theymarkaboundarydistinguishinglifeinsideandoutside,assigncontrast-
ing meanings to those worlds, use a distinctive idiom for their internal
exchanges, set up tailor‐made accounting systems, adopt media to repre-
sent those accounting systems, and establish a limited set of transactions
among members. All this amounts to the construction of connected cate-
goriesseparatinginsidersfromoutsiders.Relationalworkwithlocalmoney
createsnewcategories.
Of course, the process varies in diVerent kinds of local money groups.
Discussionsoflocalmoneyoftenmention,andsometimesconfuse,fourrather
diVerent phenomena: pegged currencies, time exchanges, commodity‐based
systems, and barter. Pegged currencies, as in the SEL or LETS, establish a
distinct local medium whose value corresponds to that of legal tender. Time
exchanges, such as New York’s pioneering Ithaca HOURS, take their value
fromhoursofeVortcontributedbytheirmembers.Commodity‐basedsystems
involvecoupons,vouchers,andcreditsthatareultimatelyredeemableonlyin
certainearmarkedgoodsorservices.Barterincludesdirectexchangeofgoods
and services for each other without intervention of a currency. Although
combinations of all four systems appear here and there, the overwhelming
4 ZelizerandTilly
majorityofdeliberatelyorganizedlocalmonetarysystemsfallintherangeof
thefirsttwo,frompeggedcurrenciestotimeexchanges.
For illustration, we focus here on the world’s most widespread system:
LETS. LETS members transfer goods and services using a locally circum-
scribedmedium,ordinarilypeggedtoanationalcurrency.Atleasttwomajor
variantsofLETSexist.Somecreatetokenstorepresenttheircurrency,while
othersrelyontelephone‐linkedorcomputer‐basedcentralaccountswithout
physicaltokens.Participantsgenerallypayanentrancefeeandsubscribetoa
servicelistingavailablegoodsandservicesprovidedbymembersofagroup.
Buyersandsellerscontacteachotherandnegotiateaprice;theirtransaction
isthenrecordedbythelocalLETSoYce.
Althoughsome enthusiastsfortheselocalarrangementsimaginetheyare
doingawaywithmoneyentirely,infacttheyarecreatingnewformsofmoney
devotedtodistinctivegroups.AsServetandhiscollaboratorsnote,theSEL
areinsearchofa‘‘goodmoney’’(bonnemonnaie)(Servet,1999,p.12).
How do members of these groups distinguish themselves and their rela-
tions from others outside? As we saw with Annie and Y, participants draw
emphatic boundaries between themselves and a diVuse commercial world.
The groups’ self‐descriptions commonly emphasize this distinction between
aninsideworldofsociablesolidarityandanoutsideworldofself‐interested
commercialism.
Language further marks that divide: LETS enthusiasts discourage partici-
pantsfromusingtraditionaleconomicterminology,suchas‘‘price,’’‘‘money,’’
or ‘‘sales,’’ referring instead to ‘‘estimated amounts,’’ ‘‘units,’’ ‘‘favours,’’ or
‘‘exchanges’’(Blanc,2000,p.261;Servet,1999,pp.28–30;Taris,2005).Indeed,
theeVortofManchesterLETSorganizerstointegratetheirexchangesextensively
intothenationaleconomyoutragedotherBritishLETSorganizers.Criticsofthe
Manchesterplan,KeithHart(1999,283)reports,preferred‘‘sealingoVamore
wholesomekindofcircuitfromthecontaminationofcapitalism.’’
LETS participants regularly draw additional, very diVerent boundaries
between themselves and their intimates. Nonmember lovers, close friends,
and family members belong to a separate set of relations from their LETS
partners.DenisBayon,aninvestigatorattheUniversityofLyon,comments:
One may, of course, fall in love in a SEL (as elsewhere) or make friends; but then the
romanticorfriendlyrelationshipbreaksoutoftheSELdomain;acouple,friends,certainly
don’tcounttheservicestheyprovideforeachother,whichfromnowonbelongtotheir
privatelifeandcouldhavebeen,inothercircumstances,exchangesmediatedbytheSEL.
(Bayon,1999,p.61fn.1)
Thedistinctionalsooperatesintheotherdirection.Whenfriendsbecome
LETSpartners,theyredefinetheirrelationships.Inherinterviewswithlocal
RelationsandCategories 5
money participants in Ontario and New York state, Mary‐Beth Raddon
foundrespondentsstrugglingtoreadjusttheirpersonalrelationstothenew
LETS media for their ongoing transactions. She reports, for instance, one
mother’suneasytransitionfromfreebabysittingforfriendstoalocalmoney
system. As Erinexplained:
Youknow,Iwouldwatchmyfriend’schildandshewouldwatchmine,andwesortofkept
trackofthehourssothatwewereeven,butoncewewerebothmembersofLETSwe’d
always pay each other in green [dollars]. But there was a change that happened once a
currencygotattachedtoitthatmadeitfeelabitdiVerent,sortofmoreformalizedandless
acurrencyoffriendship.(Raddon,2003,p.79)
Establishingboundariesbetweenthemselvesandthevarious‘‘them’’out-
sidethegroup,however,isonlypartofthecategory‐buildingsocialprocess.
LETS participants further solidify their internal connections by marking
their own economic activities and relations as distinctive. They do so most
notablybycreatingspecializedmediaandaccountingsystems,aswellasby
control ofmembership, transactions,and commodities.
Participants often reinforce their community by incorporating locally
meaningful symbols into their monetary tokens. LETS networks that do
notrelyonphysicallydistinctmediausesymbolicallychargednames,usually
with transparent local meaning. In Britain, for instance, Greenwich uses
‘‘anchors,’’ Canterbury ‘‘tales,’’ and Totnes ‘‘acorns’’ (Helleiner, 2000,
pp.46–47).InFrance,thePyre´ne´esSELuses‘‘grains,’’‘‘cailloux’’servethe
Lyon Croix‐Rousse SEL, while the ‘‘fil’’ circulates in the textile region of
Sailly‐surla‐Lys,PasdeCalais(Blanc,2000,p.265).
How do LETS regulate their membership? Although almost anyone can
sign up, once inside the group new members enter into a particular set of
relations, and must agree to abide by certain standards that distinguish
insiders from outsiders. For instance, item 18 in the Lyon‐Croix‐Rousse
SEL’s‘‘Charted’adhe´sion’’states:‘‘Exclusionofaparticipantwhosebehav-
ior contradicts the good functioning of the SEL constitutes a right of the
generalassembly’’(Servet,1999,p.30).LETSgroupsfortifytheirdistinctive
economic world by regulating transactions across boundaries. LETS cur-
rency,forinstance,isnotconvertibleintolegaltender.Indeed,anymember
whochargeslegaltender,ratherthanthelocalcurrency,ascompensationfor
servicesor goods,breaks a crucialrule (Servet,1999, p.59).
Although no one has looked comparatively at the composition of local
monetary systems in detail, available descriptions leave the impression that
they tend to be socially homogeneous. Internal diVerences in participation
by age and gender (see, e.g., Raddon, 2003) do not significantly qualify
that impression. All such systems restrict participation in some regards.
6 ZelizerandTilly
In Germany some Tauschring circuits confine their membership to the
elderly, the handicapped, foreigners, or women. Others expand their circuit
to include whol e communi ties or firms (Pierret, 1999). Even those, howeve r,
remain radically delimited as compared to thescopeof legal tender.
Localmoneysystemsalsorestrictthecommoditiestheycover.Althoughthe
range of goods and services ranges widely, including such items as clothing,
farm tools, and food, as well as foreign‐language instruction, gym courses,
plumbing, gardening, babysitting, and computer support, not all are fit to
circulate.Forinstance,manySELgroupsbantransfersofcertaingoodsand
servicesasmorally,ecologically,orpoliticallyoV‐limits.Bannedcommodities
include firearms, animals, goods manufactured by third‐world exploitation,
and in one case a member’s book on ‘‘how to get rich quick’’ (Bayon, 1999,
pp.73–74).Bayonreports:
OneoftheSELmadeaninterestingspecificationconcerningmassages.Aninternaldocu-
mentdistinguisheseroticmassages(growingoutofmembers’personalrelations),therapeu-
tic massages (that require the intervention of qualified professionals, eligible for social
security reimbursement and exchanges in national currency), and massagesdesigned for
generalwell‐beingandrelaxation.(Bayon,1999,pp.73–74)
The first two kinds of massage, according to Bayon, are forbidden, the
third acceptable. More generally, this SEL favored treatment by means of
alternative medicines.
Whenitcomestopricinggoodsandservicestheyexchange,localtrading
systems commonly reject existing market prices for their own negotiated
tariVs.Oftenthelocalpricereflectsthegroup’sgreaterevaluationofservices
that,inthemembers’estimation,thenationalmarketundervalues.Inapara-
doxical turn, for instance, household and caring tasks, typically women’s
laborexcludedordevaluedbythemainstreameconomy,findanappreciative
market within the SEL (Helleiner, 2000,p. 44;Raddon,2003).
What is more, apparently equivalent goods and services fetch diVerent
prices depending on the parties’ evaluation of the relationship. In a report
from the Centre Walra s, Etienne Perrot (1999, p. 386) notes: ‘‘The personal -
ityoftheproviderandtheaVectivedimensionofSELrelationshipsleadthe
‘client’ to pay a friend’s price (prix d’ami) independent of strict economic
calculation.’’ Similarly, Bayon observes:
Wedonotsetagainsteachotherthehoursofbaby‐sitting,orthehoursofreadingstoriesto
children....It’sJean‐Paulmyneighborwhowatchedmychildyesterday,it’sHe´le`newho
cametoread‘‘scarystories’’tomyyoungchildren,etc.AtthecoreofSELs...wefind
chains of exchange and solidarity mixing and interweaving with each other as invisible
threadsdesigningthecommongood.It’sJacqueswhotellsFranc¸oiseheneedssomeoneto
helphimwithhousework,orpreciselyFranc¸oiseknowsPierrewhowashelpedbyLuc,etc.
It’speoplewhojoinintosharechores.(Bayon,1999,pp.80–81)
RelationsandCategories 7
As a result, Bayon continues:
Thestructureof‘‘prices’’inSELcurrencywouldmakeanordinaryeconomistscream.The
‘‘same’’ (but precisely it is not the same) hour of ironing gives us here 50 grains, there,
60grains,here40grains,etc.Anoversizednewpairofshoesboughtbymistakewillbe
givenherefor100grains,there150grains.(Bayon,1999,p.81)
By the same token, SEL members, according to Bayon, reject prices that
seem morally excessive to them, regardless of the amount that the good or
servicewouldbringinnationalcurrencyoutsidethecircuit(seealsoRaddon,
2003).Evenlocalmoneysystemsthatpegtheircurrenciestolegaltenderthus
createtheirownaccountingschemestoaccommodatesettingofvalueswithin
themembership.
All over the world, then, people are building distinctive social arrange-
ments around parallel monetary systems. Each system begins with a well‐
marked boundary between inside and outside, diVerentiates the sorts of
transactions that occur inside and outside, uses distinct accounting systems
inside and outside, labels and evaluates inside and outside relations diVer-
ently, and assigns diVerent meanings to the combinations of accounting
systems, monetary media, transactions, and relations on either side of the
boundary. Inso doing, they constructnew, powerful, connected categories.
Moregenerally,foreachmeaningfullydistinctcategoryofsocialrelations,
people erect a boundary, mark the boundary by means of names and prac-
tices,establishasetofdistinctiveunderstandingsandpracticesthatoperate
within that boundary, designate certain sorts of economic transactions as
appropriate for the relation, bar other transactions as inappropriate, and
adopt certain media for reckoning and facilitating economic transactions
within the relation (for social boundary processes, see Abbott, 1995; Barth,
1969,1981;Epstein,1992;Fuller,2003;Lamont&Molnar,2002;Ong,1996;
Sanders, 2002; Tilly, 2005b). All these eVorts belong to relational work:
establishmentofdiVerentiatedsocialties,theirmaintenance,theirreshaping,
theirdistinctionfromotherrelations,andsometimestheirtermination.They
createsocialboundaries,relationswithintheboundaries,relationsacrossthe
boundaries,andmeaningfulcategoriesdistinguishingpersons,activities,and
relationsondiVerentsidesoftheboundaries.
III. Legal Tenders
Impressively parallel processes occur as people use legal tender. For all the
assumption of community money enthusiasts that they are building a dis-
tinct world from the crass, insipid, homogenized sphere of legal tender, in
fact the same kindof relational work goeson within that other sphere, and
8 ZelizerandTilly
hassincetheinventionofmoney.Ironically,managersoflegaltendercreate
a mirror image of local money’s categories. They distinguish their genuine
money and its economic sphere from corrupt, incomplete, improvised, and
ineYcientapproximationstomoney.Withthebackingofanationalgovern-
ment,genuinemoneythusdefinedtakesontheauraofpatriotism.Aswewill
see, exactly where the boundary lies and who backs the money become
categorical problems with such transnational currency asthe euro.
The very creation of uniform national currencies involved an extensive
process of social reorganization. Contrary to the presumption that eYcient
money automatically follows the expansion of markets, national states
worked vigorously to impose standardized national forms of money. Start-
ing in the nineteenth century, the US government struggled to replace
multiple circulating monies with a uniform currency. It did so by taxing
thousandsofstate‐issuedpapercurrenciesoutofexistence,banningforeign
currencies; suppressing the private issue of tokens, paper notes, or coins by
stores, businesses, churches, and other organizations; and stamping out the
personalizationofmoneybyindividuals(Helleiner,2003;Zelizer,1994).
Standardizationofmoney,however,didnotproceedsmoothlyandconsen-
sually.DefiningAmericancurrencybecameoneofthelatenineteenthcentury’s
mostexplosivepoliticalandsocialissues.Despiteadramaticpost–CivilWar
increaseinpeople’suseofdepositsrather than cash,the debatescenteredon
currencies.Weregreenbacks‘‘real’’money,ordidonly‘‘hard’’metallicmoney
serveasauthenticcurrency?Shouldgold,asmonometallistsargued,betheonly
‘‘true’’standard?Or,couldsilver,as‘‘freesilver’’proponentsmaintained,serve
asequallysoundmoney?Werenotesissuedbynationalbankslegitimate?Or,as
Greenbackersinsisted,wasonlygovernment‐issuedmoneyacceptable?These
were not merely word games or strictly technical distinctions; the ‘‘money
question’’becameafiercelycontestedpublicdebate,polarizingsocialgroups
andshapingthepoliticalprocessoflatenineteenth‐centuryAmericansociety.
By the turn of the century, controversy began to wane in the United
States. Free‐silver proponents lost the 1896 election and the 1900 Gold
StandardActestablishedthegolddollarasthenationalmonetarystandard.
Within some four decades, the American state had achieved a significant
degreeofmonetarystandardization.Notuntil1933,however,didCongress
formallydeclareallUScoinsandcurrenciestobeequallegaltender(Zelizer,
1994, pp. 13–18).
The state moved as well against the personalization of money by indivi-
duals. It broadened definitions of counterfeiting and mutilation, pursuing,
for instance, the popular late nineteenth‐century trompe l’oeil paintings of
dollar bills. The government even forbade the common late nineteenth‐
century practice of inscribing coins with sentimental messages, calling that
practice ‘‘mutilation.’’ After 1909, a law forbidding the mutilation of
RelationsandCategories 9
coins turned the popular ‘‘love token’’ gifts into an illegal currency. As the
SupremeCourtofIndianadeclaredinNovember1889,thegovernment‘‘has
arighttoprovideacurrencyforthewholenation,andtodriveoutallother
circulatingmediumsbytaxationorotherwise’’(Hancocketal.v.Yaden366
Supreme Court ofIndiana at 372).
It was a losing battle. Although the American state did achieve a sig-
nificant degree of standardization and monopolization of legal tender, peo-
ple continually disrupted monetary uniformity, actively creating all sorts
of monetary distinctions. In a remarkableparallelto the formation of local
monetary communities, people created distinctive uses of legal tender that
corresponded to diVerent sets of social relations. They did relational work
withlegaltender.Theydidsobyasetofearmarkingpractices:treatmentsof
money that signal the nature of the relationship between the parties to a
particular kind of transaction.
Earmarkingclearlyqualifiesasrelationalwork.Techniquesofearmarking
include three main varieties:
1. Establishing social practices that sort otherwise identical media into
distinct categories. Depending on how it is used, when, and most
importantlyforwhattypeofsocialrelation,thesamephysicallyindis-
tinguishable medium (e.g., dollar or a euro) can serve as a wage, a
bonus, a tip, a gift, an allowance, charity, or a remittance. Each calls
fora diVerent set of routines representing its character.
2. Asinthecaseoflocalmonies,creationofsegmentedmediaintheform
of tokens, coupons, scrip, chits, food stamps, aYnity credit cards,
money orders, vouchers, or gift certificates, which are appropriate for
restrictedsetsofrelationsandtransfers,andinmanycasesarenotlegal
tender within the larger economy.
3. Transformationofselectedobjectsintomonetarymedia,aswithcigarettes,
postagestamps,subwaytokens,pokerchips,orbaseballcards.
In each case, earmarking calls up its own mental accounting system, for
example,separatingrentmoney(keptinacheckingaccount)fromgiftmoney
(keptinaChristmasClubaccount).Theprocessofearmarkingmoniesisnot
only complex and constant but often also highly contested. Disputes arise
when parties to an interaction have contradictory understandings of the
relationship, when their values clash, or when they are pursuing conflicting
interests.TheyalsoarisewhenthepartieshaveadopteddiVerenttechniques
forearmarking,especiallywhenthepreferredtechniquesofonepartymean
somethingdiVerentandundesirabletotheotherparty.
Such practices connect with psychological work on mental accounting.
Studiesofthesubjectgenerallyrejectthenotionthatmoneyispsychologically
general,maintainingthatinsteadmoneyinvolves‘‘multiplesymbolizations.’’
10 ZelizerandTilly
An important literature on mental accounting challenges economists’
assumptionoffungibilitybyidentifyingthewaysthatindividualsdistinguish
between kinds of money. For instance, people treat windfall income much
diVerentlyfromabonusoraninheritance,evenwhenthesumsinvolvedare
identical(see,e.g.,Heath&Soll,1996;Kahneman&Tversky,1982;McGraw,
Tetlock,&Kristel,2003;Thaler,1999).Mentalaccountingturnsouttobea
psychological earmarking mechanism, in this case a particular treatment of
moneythatfitsspecificcognitivecategories.
Related work points to the behavioral impact of ‘‘money illusions’’ by
whichpeopleadoptaseriesoflocalizedconventionsforevaluatingmonetary
transactions in diVerent situations rather than translating them into the
economists’neutral,fungiblemedium(see,e.g.,Shafir,Diamond,&Tversky,
1997).PoliticalscientistRobertE.Lane(1991)hasalsodocumentedawide
varietyofwaysinwhichAmericansthinkofmoneyasvariable,ameaningful
symbol of attitudinal feelings such as personal inadequacy, loss of control,
shamefulfailure,security,orneedofsocialapproval.
There are two ways—cognitive and relational—of interpreting what is
goingonwiththesemonetaryearmarkingpractices:twodistinguishableyet
interdependent processes. One sees monetary variations as mental distinc-
tionsorcognitivemaps.TheotherseesmonetarydiVerentiationasmarking
andemergingfromdistinctivesocialrelationsandsharedmeaningsystems.In
the latter, money’s variations do not just symbolize but in fact serve to
construct social relations. They become means of relational work. Thus,
social scientists are not simply reporting sophisticated individual budgetary
strategies but identifying the significance of monetary practices as out-
comes, contents, and origins of social relations. Both processes—cognitive
andsocial—areofcoursegoingon.Therelationalworkofestablishinglegal
tender creates social boundaries, relations within the boundaries, relations
across the boundaries, and meaningful categories distinguishing persons,
activities,andrelationsondiVerentsidesoftheboundaries.
IV. The Euro
Across the European Union, the initiation of the euro in 1999 rekindled
many of the same struggles over legitimate currencies that had marked the
eventually successful nineteenth‐century eVort of western states to impose
nationallegaltenders(Fishman&Messina,2006).Alongwithvariousforms
ofelectronicmoney,theeurothreatenedtheprecariousmonetarymonopolies
thosestateshadestablishedandincitednewversionsofearmarking.
Europromoterstookonthedelicatetaskofinventingacurrencyinorder
toconstructanewtransnationaleconomicandpoliticalcategory,whatsome
call Euroland. But unlike national states, euro architects did so without a
