Local heroes: Co‐producing history, “community” and the self

Abstract

This paper explores the role of consumers as co‐producers of community banks in Australia. Through narrative analysis of the “histories” on the community bank websites, the paper highlights the interconnectedness of consumption and production processes. The paper shows how as co‐managers in the production and delivery of the banking service, the consumers create value for the bank as well as for their local communities. Further, the paper shows how as co‐creators of the bank “histories,” they produce an “ethical surplus” (Arvidsson 2005) that has value beyond simple use or exchange value; it has “staging value” (Bohme 2003). Through the “histories” the consumers stage themselves as civic‐minded individuals helping to bring continuity to their communities.

Keywords:

• narrative
• community
• co‐production
• history
• banking
• identity

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their very helpful feedback on an earlier version of the paper. Thanks also to Ms. Lynette Twigg for her research assistance on this paper.

Notes

1. The community bank model originated in the US, where it has offered smaller financial institutions an opportunity to differentiate themselves by building on local community associations and servicing the financial needs of the community. The difference between the model offered by Bendigo and the community banks in the US is that the US banks are locally owned and not affiliated with any other bank (Local Government Banking and Financial Services Taskforce 1999, 20).

2. In 2006 women represented only 8.7% of board directors of the top 200 ASX listed companies (Census of Women in Leadership 2008).