Expanded Government of the Self: Practices, Objects, and Relations in the Luna Social Currency, Colombia

Abstract

This article analyzes emerging practices of conduct transformation related to money. It is based on eight conversations with promoters of the Luna social currency, which gather reflections and lessons learned from the accompaniment, participation, and management of social currencies over the past seven years. The article provides an overview of these currencies, highlights the relevance of approaching them from the perspective of governmentality, and identifies a set of practices aimed at transitioning toward lifestyles that distance themselves from capitalism, which this work understands under the term expanded self-government. The what of these ethical interventions emerges as a set of beliefs and ways of relating. The how consists of creating spaces for encounters and the circulation of goods, producing and weaving connections, replicating and experimenting with specific organizational patterns, shifting language, and, more broadly, transforming points of reference