And the second part of the literature review is about social capital and charities. Basically...
Social capital can be particulalry important for immigrants who can lack financial capital, as well as cultural capital and human capital (in terms of the extent to which their learning skills are recognised in a new society). There are also layers of social capital - friendship/kinship networks, associations and "cultural categories" (or interest groups). Charities play a role in linking all these layers in the C19. Charities are also important for the role they play in creating and maintaining connections and social capital, for instance through the performance or rituals and narratives, and the way in which these establish roles for donors or recipients. Charities can also be relatively neutral spaces that allow for bridging cross ethnicity, without necessarily compromising the ethnicity of those involved. Performances and roles within charities may also help maintain ethnic identification, as can the rules for participating or being helped in those charities. ie they help maintain the group's borders. They can also help bridging social capital between classes, and working class people's involvement was often as more than just beneficiaries. Elites within immigrant communities may also use these spaces to ensure their own cohesiveness, as well as to link with other powerful groups outisde the community (for instance - in both cases - in soliciting donations).
Social capital was under stress in the early C19 under the challenges of urbanisations and industrialisation. There was also increasing spatial and cultural segregation between rich and poor. This meant less interactions between rich and poor, and possibly declining generalised trust and confidence. This may help explain the move to both the New Poor Law and the "new charity" with its emphasis on investigating need and character. However, social capital within immigrant communities may still have been higher and, along with established cultural practices and attitudes, this may explain the survival of more traditional forms of charity which corresponded more to traditional alms giving rather than to control and invvestigation. Differing forms and amounts of social capital within immigrant communities may also help explain the different paths of integration and development of different ethnic groups. The role of charities in the creation and maintenance of social capital can therefore mean that the study of charities helping immigrant communities may thus explain the varying fortunes of immigrant communities in the nineteenth century.
And that's it. Will try and write about other things on this blog now.
Saturday 8 September 2007
Thursday 6 September 2007
Finally...
I've finally written up the second version of my literature review and then attempted to present all of it in 10 minutes at a proper academic conference (well, the new researcher session at NCVO's researching the voluntary sector conference anyway). Presentation wasn't too bad bearing in mind how much stuff I had to say and that none of the audience were really interested in the early nineteenth century...
Anyway, the basic argument is:
Social control has been used as a concept when looking at charities at this point but it needs to answer who is the controller, who is controlled and how are they controlled. In terms of charities, it's not a simple middle class controller because of how decisions were made and who made them in an organisation (for instance working class paid staff or staff who of a different ethnicity to the trustees) and that many organisations were working class led. And the poor could to some extent negotiate with charities through personal knowledge of precedent and those who made decisions (especially with those charities where donors voted on who should get help) - and pick up some elements of what is on offer and reject others (eg with education). Charities also weren't that effective, with relatively small numbers helped and with the more controlling aspects dumped when the demands of applicants became too much. Irish charities also weren't that interested in changing the working class into bourgeois Britons as they still emphasised traditional alms giving and with Catholic ideas about the "holy poor".
More on the social capital argument later in the week...
Anyway, the basic argument is:
Social control has been used as a concept when looking at charities at this point but it needs to answer who is the controller, who is controlled and how are they controlled. In terms of charities, it's not a simple middle class controller because of how decisions were made and who made them in an organisation (for instance working class paid staff or staff who of a different ethnicity to the trustees) and that many organisations were working class led. And the poor could to some extent negotiate with charities through personal knowledge of precedent and those who made decisions (especially with those charities where donors voted on who should get help) - and pick up some elements of what is on offer and reject others (eg with education). Charities also weren't that effective, with relatively small numbers helped and with the more controlling aspects dumped when the demands of applicants became too much. Irish charities also weren't that interested in changing the working class into bourgeois Britons as they still emphasised traditional alms giving and with Catholic ideas about the "holy poor".
More on the social capital argument later in the week...
Friday 29 June 2007
Bourdieu
The Forms of Capital by Pierre Bourdieu
* existence of capital in various forms means that life is not random and prevents people from being able to dramatically change their social status instantly, it's not the case that "every soldier has a marshal's baton in his knapsack"
* cultural capital can exist in three forms - embodied (in "the form of longlasting dispositions of the mind and body"), objectified (cultural goods) and institutionalised (eg educational qualifications)
* he defines social capital as "the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition - or in other words, to membership in a group - which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a "credential" which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word.
* relationships may also "may also be socially instituted and guaranteed by the application of a common name (the name of a family, a class, or a tribe or of a school, a party, etc.) and by a whole set of instituting acts designed simultaneously to form and inform those who undergo them; in this case, they are more or less really enacted and so maintained and reinforced, in exchanges"
* "the network of relationships is the product of investment strategies, individual or collective, consciously or unconsciously aimed at establishing or reproducing social relationships that are directly usable in the short or long term, i.e., at transforming contingent relations, such as those of neighborhood, the workplace, or even kinship, into relationships that are at once necessary and elective, implying durable obligations subjectively felt (feelings of gratitude, respect, friendship, etc.) or institutionally guaranteed (rights)."
* social capital seems for Bourdieu to be consciously pursued, where those who are "richly endowed with capital" (of various forms) are sought after for their social capital
* he also points out the role of individuals or elites to speak and act for a group with joint social capital, and perhaps in policing the boundaries of that group.
He suggests that some of the value of cultural capital is its scarcity value. Is this true of social capital where it can be the number and quality of links and the ways in which those links can access other forms of capital and access to resources (Bourdieu says "the volume of social capital possessed by a given agent thus depends one the size of the network of connections he can effectively mobilize and on the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his own right by each of those to whom he is connected".) But is there also a scarcity value of social capital? Does someone with high social status benefit from limiting his or her links, or is there a benefit in extending them to all and sundry?
* existence of capital in various forms means that life is not random and prevents people from being able to dramatically change their social status instantly, it's not the case that "every soldier has a marshal's baton in his knapsack"
* cultural capital can exist in three forms - embodied (in "the form of longlasting dispositions of the mind and body"), objectified (cultural goods) and institutionalised (eg educational qualifications)
* he defines social capital as "the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition - or in other words, to membership in a group - which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a "credential" which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word.
* relationships may also "may also be socially instituted and guaranteed by the application of a common name (the name of a family, a class, or a tribe or of a school, a party, etc.) and by a whole set of instituting acts designed simultaneously to form and inform those who undergo them; in this case, they are more or less really enacted and so maintained and reinforced, in exchanges"
* "the network of relationships is the product of investment strategies, individual or collective, consciously or unconsciously aimed at establishing or reproducing social relationships that are directly usable in the short or long term, i.e., at transforming contingent relations, such as those of neighborhood, the workplace, or even kinship, into relationships that are at once necessary and elective, implying durable obligations subjectively felt (feelings of gratitude, respect, friendship, etc.) or institutionally guaranteed (rights)."
* social capital seems for Bourdieu to be consciously pursued, where those who are "richly endowed with capital" (of various forms) are sought after for their social capital
* he also points out the role of individuals or elites to speak and act for a group with joint social capital, and perhaps in policing the boundaries of that group.
He suggests that some of the value of cultural capital is its scarcity value. Is this true of social capital where it can be the number and quality of links and the ways in which those links can access other forms of capital and access to resources (Bourdieu says "the volume of social capital possessed by a given agent thus depends one the size of the network of connections he can effectively mobilize and on the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his own right by each of those to whom he is connected".) But is there also a scarcity value of social capital? Does someone with high social status benefit from limiting his or her links, or is there a benefit in extending them to all and sundry?
Sunday 3 June 2007
Putnam on late C19 voluntary action (inc social control) and Clemens on three levels of social capital
More from Patterns of Social Capital...
Putnam and Gerald Gamm have results from surveys of town directories in the second half of the C19, with some additional drilling of membership records of a few organisations. Their chapter details the main results they find, which is that rapid population growth and cumulative results of growth inhibit the development of civic associations.
They suggest that this would not be expected given the main theories about the growth of voluntary action, which is that it either:
* is about the middle class trying to exert social control on a working class population that was no longer as disciplined/stable due to urbanisation and industrialisation
* is due to a genuine benevolent desire to meet the needs of the poor or distressed (which could also include working class charity)
* is down to working class or immigrant people’s desire for cohesiveness in the face of rapid change
* is caused by a desire to express identity and establish replacement networks in a new society
Their conclusions are hesitant about what the actual cause may be. It could be due to the higher costs of not participation in such organisations for individuals in smaller towns (though this would not be a dynamic theory and would therefore not explain such organisations’ growth), or due to national networks seeking as an outcome a local branch in each city/town rather than on focussing on their reach into the overall population. Local social “entrepreneurs” may also have found it easier to get people involved in places where there was less competition for (leisure?) time from other attractions.
Overall, it does suggest that people (at least in the late nineteenth century in America) didn’t really join associations to primarily achieve the kinds of aims which historians would look at. Perhaps, it was more subconscious, or about the other individuals involved, or even the reward of the rituals and norms involved in membership. Which maybe suggests again a more anthropological approach...
Clemens meanwhile disagrees that social capital is portable or fungible, a fallacy resulting from social capital as metaphor which invites comparison with financial capital (it is instead “fundamentally embedded, rooted in ‘norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement’”). She also stressed the political - social capital is structured at three levels which “constitutes a terrain for politics and a landscape that is reconfigured through politics”.
She suggests that the levels are:
1- trusting relationships / social ties between individuals, which can be either within or without organisations, which can develop skills and capacities (which might or might not be easily transposed to other sets of relationships) (she says that “the genius of nineteenth century voluntary associations lay in both t heir cultivation of transposable routines for acting collectively...and their elaboration of national federations grounded in the sociability of communities of friendship networks”
2- formation of associations, which change the relationship to allow for action - “formal organization transforms a network of interpersonal ties into a system of roles and routines. New members are more easily integrated and expansive campaigns more easily co-ordinated”
3- “finally these interpersonal networks and formal associations were both embedded in cultural categories that structured discourse about civic life”. More than one kind of organisation might provide education for poor children, but the public identity of the organisation “gave distinctive meaning to their efforts”, with organisations anchoring meaning. They were particularly important at this period because “before survey research promised direct access to individual opinions, organizations served as critical signals of position within public debate”.
Her presentation of these three levels brings together the potentially conflicting descriptions of others on social capital which can often include in an unreflective way discussion of individuals’ social capital power with vague discussions of “civil society” or Habermas’ public space. They can be a useful way to analyse social capital alongside the discussion in public policy of bonding, bridging and linking social capital.
Putnam and Gerald Gamm have results from surveys of town directories in the second half of the C19, with some additional drilling of membership records of a few organisations. Their chapter details the main results they find, which is that rapid population growth and cumulative results of growth inhibit the development of civic associations.
They suggest that this would not be expected given the main theories about the growth of voluntary action, which is that it either:
* is about the middle class trying to exert social control on a working class population that was no longer as disciplined/stable due to urbanisation and industrialisation
* is due to a genuine benevolent desire to meet the needs of the poor or distressed (which could also include working class charity)
* is down to working class or immigrant people’s desire for cohesiveness in the face of rapid change
* is caused by a desire to express identity and establish replacement networks in a new society
Their conclusions are hesitant about what the actual cause may be. It could be due to the higher costs of not participation in such organisations for individuals in smaller towns (though this would not be a dynamic theory and would therefore not explain such organisations’ growth), or due to national networks seeking as an outcome a local branch in each city/town rather than on focussing on their reach into the overall population. Local social “entrepreneurs” may also have found it easier to get people involved in places where there was less competition for (leisure?) time from other attractions.
Overall, it does suggest that people (at least in the late nineteenth century in America) didn’t really join associations to primarily achieve the kinds of aims which historians would look at. Perhaps, it was more subconscious, or about the other individuals involved, or even the reward of the rituals and norms involved in membership. Which maybe suggests again a more anthropological approach...
Clemens meanwhile disagrees that social capital is portable or fungible, a fallacy resulting from social capital as metaphor which invites comparison with financial capital (it is instead “fundamentally embedded, rooted in ‘norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement’”). She also stressed the political - social capital is structured at three levels which “constitutes a terrain for politics and a landscape that is reconfigured through politics”.
She suggests that the levels are:
1- trusting relationships / social ties between individuals, which can be either within or without organisations, which can develop skills and capacities (which might or might not be easily transposed to other sets of relationships) (she says that “the genius of nineteenth century voluntary associations lay in both t heir cultivation of transposable routines for acting collectively...and their elaboration of national federations grounded in the sociability of communities of friendship networks”
2- formation of associations, which change the relationship to allow for action - “formal organization transforms a network of interpersonal ties into a system of roles and routines. New members are more easily integrated and expansive campaigns more easily co-ordinated”
3- “finally these interpersonal networks and formal associations were both embedded in cultural categories that structured discourse about civic life”. More than one kind of organisation might provide education for poor children, but the public identity of the organisation “gave distinctive meaning to their efforts”, with organisations anchoring meaning. They were particularly important at this period because “before survey research promised direct access to individual opinions, organizations served as critical signals of position within public debate”.
Her presentation of these three levels brings together the potentially conflicting descriptions of others on social capital which can often include in an unreflective way discussion of individuals’ social capital power with vague discussions of “civil society” or Habermas’ public space. They can be a useful way to analyse social capital alongside the discussion in public policy of bonding, bridging and linking social capital.
Saturday 2 June 2007
Male/female and institutional/non-institutional social capital
Marjorie McIntosh's chapter in Patterns of Social Capital highlights gender differences in social capital (based on early modern England and mid-C20 Nigeria, which also highlights issues around the role of institutions in affecting social capital.
In terms of gender differences, these seem basically to be:
*men - lateral and vertical ties, more based around institutions, can be seen to lead to economic and political growth, perhaps more portable to diffferent locations, male access to political, economic and cultural capital means that they are less reliant on social capital (and maybe therefore easier to pick and choose and find more "getting on" social capital?), and more likely to give to the poor through charities or poor-relief officials
* women - more based in a particular (geographical) group, has a role in bringing up the next generation (though this isn't really picked up in the chapter), more likely to give directly to the poor, more reliant on social capital as lack of access to other forms of capital, and more used a defence against the prospect of losing means of income.
She concludes that using a more sociological, political science or economic approach may miss out on women's use of social capital, and more anthropological approach may be more useful. (favouring Bourdieu over Putnam and Coleman's emphasis on outcomes from social capital and how social capital leads to wider social and political development).
McIntosh also discusses the role of institutions in social capital, mainly in relation to highlighting gender differences (for instance she says that men's social capital gained through institutions was portable and provided learning that could be applied elsewhere) though she also points out the role of what you might call more "compulsory organisations" (eg parish bodies) as well as voluntary organisations, which she feels has been overemphasised in much of the work on social capital. She also discusses how SC can provoke hostility and division as well as social integration (the "darkside" of SC). It would be interesting to consider the extent to which institutions give a stronger ideological or cultural base to social capital, as well as influencing rituals of behaviour, or narratives about people's involvement or behaviour.
Finally, she concludes that "laterally focused systems of social capital" are more attrative when a previously stable society is becoming more dynamic, but that the attraction of lateral SC diminishes as they become a hindrance to individuals seeking to take advantage of the new society.
In terms of gender differences, these seem basically to be:
*men - lateral and vertical ties, more based around institutions, can be seen to lead to economic and political growth, perhaps more portable to diffferent locations, male access to political, economic and cultural capital means that they are less reliant on social capital (and maybe therefore easier to pick and choose and find more "getting on" social capital?), and more likely to give to the poor through charities or poor-relief officials
* women - more based in a particular (geographical) group, has a role in bringing up the next generation (though this isn't really picked up in the chapter), more likely to give directly to the poor, more reliant on social capital as lack of access to other forms of capital, and more used a defence against the prospect of losing means of income.
She concludes that using a more sociological, political science or economic approach may miss out on women's use of social capital, and more anthropological approach may be more useful. (favouring Bourdieu over Putnam and Coleman's emphasis on outcomes from social capital and how social capital leads to wider social and political development).
McIntosh also discusses the role of institutions in social capital, mainly in relation to highlighting gender differences (for instance she says that men's social capital gained through institutions was portable and provided learning that could be applied elsewhere) though she also points out the role of what you might call more "compulsory organisations" (eg parish bodies) as well as voluntary organisations, which she feels has been overemphasised in much of the work on social capital. She also discusses how SC can provoke hostility and division as well as social integration (the "darkside" of SC). It would be interesting to consider the extent to which institutions give a stronger ideological or cultural base to social capital, as well as influencing rituals of behaviour, or narratives about people's involvement or behaviour.
Finally, she concludes that "laterally focused systems of social capital" are more attrative when a previously stable society is becoming more dynamic, but that the attraction of lateral SC diminishes as they become a hindrance to individuals seeking to take advantage of the new society.
Monday 28 May 2007
Some historians write about social capital
...and most completely ignore the subject or else don't understand what it's about. Well, at least some of them in Patterns of Social Capital (ed Robert Rotberg), which claims to "advance the study of social capital across chronological and geographical space".
Some of them either just write standard articles about their own subject with some random references to social capital or Putnam throw in without bothering to say what they mean by social capital (or as the intro says, "Brucher, Muir, Grew and Rosenband test generalizations, as most historians do, against empirical details over longer or shorter episodes of time").
Others just regard social capital as pretty well the same thing as civil society/civic engagement/public sphere without really bothering to define them (see Mary Ryan's Civil Society as Democratic Practice: North American Cities During the Nineteenth Century), or else decide that social capital is basically cultural capital so let's just talk about cultural capital instead (see Raymond Grew's Finding Social Capital: The French Revolution in Italy) - though Jack Greene does more usefully discuss how social capital needs to be located within cultural capital to look at how others can inherit advantages associated with this (in his article relating it to colonial British America).
Generally, there seems a deep suspicion of the concept of social capital among some of the historians writing in the collection:
Some of the essays attack Putnam's description of Italian history, particularly his description of the origins of higher social capital in Northern Italy resulting from republican guild associations, and therefore are suspicious of whether a theoretical concept can be built around this mistaken analysis (and also of guild based association in other countries - see Rosenband's Social Capital and the Early Industrial Revolution)
There is also suspicion about a concept used by political scientists and economists, eg:
* Greene says that historians are "far less concerned with how to attain the specific goals that modern society deems desirable" and that social scientists' definition of social capital is "too narrow, too instrumental, too Whiggish, and too Western". It needs to be applicable across a wide variety of times and spaces (I would have it was but nevermind) and that it must be "redefined and expanded to include not just traditions of civil interaction but the entire range of institutions, practices, devices, and learned behaviours that enable collectivities and individuals to render physical spaces productive and social and cultural spaces agreeable".
* For Mary Ryan, "'social capital' might ring pleasantly in the ears of social scientists, but to some humanists it emits a discordant economistic sound"
* Elisabeth Clemens regards it as a metaphor, using financial imagery, but that metaphors can be dangerous because they can "assert multiple dimensions of similarity" which may be misleading. In social capital's case, she argues that it can lead to seeing social capital as as portable or fungible as financial capital, whereas it is much more firmly rooted and embedded in networks.
However, there are also a number of very useful analyses of social capital in different contexts, and also how using social capital as an analytical concept in historical studies needs to address a number of important issues. More on these in a bit...
Some of them either just write standard articles about their own subject with some random references to social capital or Putnam throw in without bothering to say what they mean by social capital (or as the intro says, "Brucher, Muir, Grew and Rosenband test generalizations, as most historians do, against empirical details over longer or shorter episodes of time").
Others just regard social capital as pretty well the same thing as civil society/civic engagement/public sphere without really bothering to define them (see Mary Ryan's Civil Society as Democratic Practice: North American Cities During the Nineteenth Century), or else decide that social capital is basically cultural capital so let's just talk about cultural capital instead (see Raymond Grew's Finding Social Capital: The French Revolution in Italy) - though Jack Greene does more usefully discuss how social capital needs to be located within cultural capital to look at how others can inherit advantages associated with this (in his article relating it to colonial British America).
Generally, there seems a deep suspicion of the concept of social capital among some of the historians writing in the collection:
Some of the essays attack Putnam's description of Italian history, particularly his description of the origins of higher social capital in Northern Italy resulting from republican guild associations, and therefore are suspicious of whether a theoretical concept can be built around this mistaken analysis (and also of guild based association in other countries - see Rosenband's Social Capital and the Early Industrial Revolution)
There is also suspicion about a concept used by political scientists and economists, eg:
* Greene says that historians are "far less concerned with how to attain the specific goals that modern society deems desirable" and that social scientists' definition of social capital is "too narrow, too instrumental, too Whiggish, and too Western". It needs to be applicable across a wide variety of times and spaces (I would have it was but nevermind) and that it must be "redefined and expanded to include not just traditions of civil interaction but the entire range of institutions, practices, devices, and learned behaviours that enable collectivities and individuals to render physical spaces productive and social and cultural spaces agreeable".
* For Mary Ryan, "'social capital' might ring pleasantly in the ears of social scientists, but to some humanists it emits a discordant economistic sound"
* Elisabeth Clemens regards it as a metaphor, using financial imagery, but that metaphors can be dangerous because they can "assert multiple dimensions of similarity" which may be misleading. In social capital's case, she argues that it can lead to seeing social capital as as portable or fungible as financial capital, whereas it is much more firmly rooted and embedded in networks.
However, there are also a number of very useful analyses of social capital in different contexts, and also how using social capital as an analytical concept in historical studies needs to address a number of important issues. More on these in a bit...
Charity, philanthropy and reform
Notes from Charity, philanthropy and reform, ed Hugh Cunningham and Joanna Innes
From Intro by Cunningham
6 themes for further study of charity and philanthropy are:
* changing perceptions of poverty (esp with urbanisation and manufacturing)
* "politics of charity" - states and cities prided themselves on their charitable efforts, which lent legitimacy to often fragile structures of power
* gendering of charity - women and (religious) charity, men and (secular) philanthropy
* need to avoid simply studying organisations because they leave records - need to look at informal giving and private charity
* studies have looked at Christian western Europe, and haven't looked at how Islam might have influenced Europe
* past focus on donors - what about recipients ("charity was a reciprocal relationship and encoded appropriate modes oof behaviour on donor and recipient")
From State, Church and Voluntarism in European Welfare, 1690-1850 (Joanna Innes)
* lots of complaints in early C19 about settlement laws needed with local poor relief, but hardly any mention about shifting it to national taxes (because of lack of effective expenditure control?)
* needed local elites to run poor relief (lack of local elites in Ireland meant more difficult to adapt English system)
* dissenting groups and the state - "they were likely to treasure their independence, and to be interested in building up charitable resources and enlarging their welfare role primarily as a means to protect and reinforce that. It was not uncommon for dissenting groups' special efforts to attract wider notice and for them to be held up as models of community self-sufficiency" (eg French protestants in Switzerland in 1770s)
* role of charities in poor relief was attractive to states, in terms of both cash and people - they could do things the state could not, they could get money that people were unwilling to give to the state, and it helped in terms of legitimation
From Head v heart? Voluntary Associations and Charity Organisation in England, c 1700-1850 (Michael JD Roberts)
* good on rise of more scientific charity - eg giving was no longer a duty but was "an act of mercy peformed as a result of morally refined sensitivity in the giver to the sight or knowledge of human suffering". Giving was voluntary both legally and morally so it was "reasonable for the donor to expect the recipient to conform to certain continuing standards of deservingness" - mainly to restore and retain a self-supporting positionin society by being in the labour market
* problems of charities trying to monitor and evaluate deservingness of charitable applicants - difficult to keep doing and difficult to do on any large scale
* religious charities were pulled in two directions - professionalising and proseltyzing
From Transforming the Nation and the Child: Philanthropy in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and England, c1780-c1850 (Jeroen Dekker)
* uses concept of social marginality, with poor at periphery of society compared to mainstream, with intermediate area of fragility where people could sink into periphery
* like others, contrasts "philanthropy" (utilitarian) with "charity" (Christian) and also growth in C19 of mix which was "Christian philanthropy"
* traditional Christian charity aimed to make life more humane for those with marginal standard of living, but modern philanthropy "not only aimed at making life for the poor and the marginals more humane, but also at eliminating the marginals as a specific social group"
* Catholic charity was more reliant on clergy congregations, compared to Protestants with more individual action and where semi-independent bodies played a role
From Religion, Philanthropy and the State in late 18th and early 19th Century Ireland (Maria Luddy)
* In Catholic eyes, all Protestant philantrhopy was eventually to become tainted with the stain of proseltism, precluding any interdenominational attempts at co-operation for the benefit of the poor and needy in Irish societ" - which was presumably brought as an attitude to England by Irish immigrants
From Intro by Cunningham
6 themes for further study of charity and philanthropy are:
* changing perceptions of poverty (esp with urbanisation and manufacturing)
* "politics of charity" - states and cities prided themselves on their charitable efforts, which lent legitimacy to often fragile structures of power
* gendering of charity - women and (religious) charity, men and (secular) philanthropy
* need to avoid simply studying organisations because they leave records - need to look at informal giving and private charity
* studies have looked at Christian western Europe, and haven't looked at how Islam might have influenced Europe
* past focus on donors - what about recipients ("charity was a reciprocal relationship and encoded appropriate modes oof behaviour on donor and recipient")
From State, Church and Voluntarism in European Welfare, 1690-1850 (Joanna Innes)
* lots of complaints in early C19 about settlement laws needed with local poor relief, but hardly any mention about shifting it to national taxes (because of lack of effective expenditure control?)
* needed local elites to run poor relief (lack of local elites in Ireland meant more difficult to adapt English system)
* dissenting groups and the state - "they were likely to treasure their independence, and to be interested in building up charitable resources and enlarging their welfare role primarily as a means to protect and reinforce that. It was not uncommon for dissenting groups' special efforts to attract wider notice and for them to be held up as models of community self-sufficiency" (eg French protestants in Switzerland in 1770s)
* role of charities in poor relief was attractive to states, in terms of both cash and people - they could do things the state could not, they could get money that people were unwilling to give to the state, and it helped in terms of legitimation
From Head v heart? Voluntary Associations and Charity Organisation in England, c 1700-1850 (Michael JD Roberts)
* good on rise of more scientific charity - eg giving was no longer a duty but was "an act of mercy peformed as a result of morally refined sensitivity in the giver to the sight or knowledge of human suffering". Giving was voluntary both legally and morally so it was "reasonable for the donor to expect the recipient to conform to certain continuing standards of deservingness" - mainly to restore and retain a self-supporting positionin society by being in the labour market
* problems of charities trying to monitor and evaluate deservingness of charitable applicants - difficult to keep doing and difficult to do on any large scale
* religious charities were pulled in two directions - professionalising and proseltyzing
From Transforming the Nation and the Child: Philanthropy in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and England, c1780-c1850 (Jeroen Dekker)
* uses concept of social marginality, with poor at periphery of society compared to mainstream, with intermediate area of fragility where people could sink into periphery
* like others, contrasts "philanthropy" (utilitarian) with "charity" (Christian) and also growth in C19 of mix which was "Christian philanthropy"
* traditional Christian charity aimed to make life more humane for those with marginal standard of living, but modern philanthropy "not only aimed at making life for the poor and the marginals more humane, but also at eliminating the marginals as a specific social group"
* Catholic charity was more reliant on clergy congregations, compared to Protestants with more individual action and where semi-independent bodies played a role
From Religion, Philanthropy and the State in late 18th and early 19th Century Ireland (Maria Luddy)
* In Catholic eyes, all Protestant philantrhopy was eventually to become tainted with the stain of proseltism, precluding any interdenominational attempts at co-operation for the benefit of the poor and needy in Irish societ" - which was presumably brought as an attitude to England by Irish immigrants
Tuesday 8 May 2007
back with the Internet
Have been rubbish at updating this for the past couple of months, mainly because we've been moving house and BT took forever to sort out removing tags from our new phone line. Anyway, it's all sorted now so should be more in a bit. In the meantime, here's a photo from the medieval fancy dress wedding we went to last week in Cornwall. Photos with fancy dress are on flickr.
Wednesday 28 February 2007
Neighbouring
I went to the launch of Respect in the Neighbourhood yesterday. The book is edited by Kevin Harris of the rather good Neighbourhoods blog. Two things were guaranteed at the launch seminar - that the chair introducing the seminar would have their own anecdote about neighbouring, and that there would be an academic who would challenge what we really meant by [insert concept here} and would go on to use the words discourse and reified. There was a lot of talk about the decline of the local neighbourhood as the basis for social support and the issue of anti-social behaviour.
So in that vein, the pic above shows my neighbourhood with the postman urinating against the wall opposite the flat that was pushed over by some kids a couple of weekends ago. At the moment, I can see people in the flats opposite doing the same as me, crouched over their computers. Not much sign of neighbouring there then.
And it's unlikely to change as the area's moved to virtually all the houses and flats being rented out to people who move every six months when the lease is up. This isn't necessarily such a problem for the kinds of people who live here (in their late 20s and early 30s and mostly without kids) whose friendship networks span London (and probably the world given the mix of South Africans, Australians, Poles, French and Germans in the area) but it does get to be a problem for those who can't access such mobility and are more tied to their local area for such support (for instance elderly people, children and those on very low incomes).
It's also a split you would have had in the nineteenth century. Although there was greater neighbourhood support (although this wouldn't have been much in the way of financial support) the poor were much more tied to their local area. Most of those displaced in slum clearances or to make way for railways stayed nearby (adding to overcrowding) because they needed to stay near potential jobs and to maintain their place in their local neighbourhood network of support in case of times of need. The rich meanwhile were able to access much wider networks of support and had access to wider information networks to enable them to take advantage of work or other opportunities (including, for some, globalised networks - such as those that the Surrey Docks were part of).
Friday 23 February 2007
Social capital and civil society
From Generating Social Capital - Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective (which is a bit more interested in the political and democratic ramifications of social capital than I am for this particular study)
Useful bits include from the intro by Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle:
The chapter on the sources of social capital by Stolle has the following points (mostly about contemporary vol orgs):
Useful bits include from the intro by Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle:
The chapter on the sources of social capital by Stolle has the following points (mostly about contemporary vol orgs):
A few more comments on social capital...
Some more comments on social capital, this time a chapter by Simon Szreter from Social Capital - Critical Perspectives:
Michael Woolcock - need to balance between embeddness and autonomy (which I guess is related to Putnam's bonding and bridging). eg: "among the very poor living in inner city ghettoes, those who have a relatively small number of intense family and neighbourhood ties and loyalties are too embedded and locked into their poverty"
Also large city agglomerations before modern communications were the most efficient information exchange systems (which maybe links into the work I'm doing at Living Streets on the value of the public realm and good public transport to economic and social progress)
A good example of trusting networks is non-conformists lending money to other non-cons to start businesses in early period of industrialisation.
Mid-Victorian period may have seen a decline in social capital (Szreter seems to be using a Putnamesque approach to area based or civic social capital) - "there is substantial evidence of decline and deterioration in social infrastructure and in measurable dimensions of social capital in the urban heart of the mid-Victorian industrian economy of mainland Britain" (though I haven't noted whether he actually have any more evidence for this).
A final point is that the C18 kind of social capital couldn't scale up to meet the new challenges of the mid-Victorian city - though you could argue this may be because it was the "wrong kind" of social capital in which bonding social capital within religious groups meant that common efforts were not effective. The restrictions on voting may also have restricted the ability of social capital to bridge social classes if the working class were not part of the "public" and traditional activities that crossed class boundaries went into decline.
Michael Woolcock - need to balance between embeddness and autonomy (which I guess is related to Putnam's bonding and bridging). eg: "among the very poor living in inner city ghettoes, those who have a relatively small number of intense family and neighbourhood ties and loyalties are too embedded and locked into their poverty"
Also large city agglomerations before modern communications were the most efficient information exchange systems (which maybe links into the work I'm doing at Living Streets on the value of the public realm and good public transport to economic and social progress)
A good example of trusting networks is non-conformists lending money to other non-cons to start businesses in early period of industrialisation.
Mid-Victorian period may have seen a decline in social capital (Szreter seems to be using a Putnamesque approach to area based or civic social capital) - "there is substantial evidence of decline and deterioration in social infrastructure and in measurable dimensions of social capital in the urban heart of the mid-Victorian industrian economy of mainland Britain" (though I haven't noted whether he actually have any more evidence for this).
A final point is that the C18 kind of social capital couldn't scale up to meet the new challenges of the mid-Victorian city - though you could argue this may be because it was the "wrong kind" of social capital in which bonding social capital within religious groups meant that common efforts were not effective. The restrictions on voting may also have restricted the ability of social capital to bridge social classes if the working class were not part of the "public" and traditional activities that crossed class boundaries went into decline.
Sunday 18 February 2007
So Robert Putnam then...
Re-reading my notes on Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone...
He talks about social capital as both a private and public good, and that both bonding (which he also calls "sociological superglue") and bridging ('sociological WD-40") social capital can occur in the same space/group (he uses the examples of a black church which bonds ethnicity but bridges class).
He has a good quote about the value of bonding social capital for ethnic groups - "Dense networks in ethnic enclaves...provide crucial social and psychological support for less fortunate members of the community, while furnishing start-up financing, markets, and reliable labour for local entrepreneurs. Briding networks, by contrast are better for linkage to external assets and for information diffusion". Based on this, one useful hypothesis for charities/immigrant groups would be the extent to which they could access social capital both within and without the community. It would be good to be able to plot this on an X (bridging) and Y (bonding) graph but I've no idea how to measure these in terms of charities (and Putnam says that there aren't surveys to distinguish between the two). There might also be differences in immigrant groups being able to use "thin trust" (another aspect of Putnam's social capital), which can extend beyond those one knows to a wider group. eg some immigrant groups may feel that they can trust those in their group whereas others may not (would religion have a role here?).
And on religious affiliation and social capital - "the social ties embodied in religious communities are at least as important as relious beliefs per se in accounting for volunteerism and philanthropy...Connectedness, not merely faith, is responsible for the benficence of church people".
On individual involvement and altruism - depends partly on involvement when young, and also people who have received help are more likely to help others: "giving, volunteering and joining are mutually reinforcing and habit forming - as Tocqueville put it, 'the habits of the heart'."
Poorer people need (and may therefore seek out?) more social capital precisely because they lack economic capital and can have difficulty gaining human capital (eg barriers to education). From a US perspective, Putnam suggests that church attendance is what influences black youths ability to gain employment, and this is becuase of the social networking effects rather than beliefs. need to check references to this in Kidd book on nineteenth century
On this, Putnam points out the role of ethnic networks as employment networks as they can use employees to recruit and train new employees as well as resulting in good employee morale and more company loyalty. It can also be related to acquisition of financing for smaller businesses, who can lack access to traditional financial institutions (and which were much more limited in nineteenth century London).
He talks about social capital as both a private and public good, and that both bonding (which he also calls "sociological superglue") and bridging ('sociological WD-40") social capital can occur in the same space/group (he uses the examples of a black church which bonds ethnicity but bridges class).
He has a good quote about the value of bonding social capital for ethnic groups - "Dense networks in ethnic enclaves...provide crucial social and psychological support for less fortunate members of the community, while furnishing start-up financing, markets, and reliable labour for local entrepreneurs. Briding networks, by contrast are better for linkage to external assets and for information diffusion". Based on this, one useful hypothesis for charities/immigrant groups would be the extent to which they could access social capital both within and without the community. It would be good to be able to plot this on an X (bridging) and Y (bonding) graph but I've no idea how to measure these in terms of charities (and Putnam says that there aren't surveys to distinguish between the two). There might also be differences in immigrant groups being able to use "thin trust" (another aspect of Putnam's social capital), which can extend beyond those one knows to a wider group. eg some immigrant groups may feel that they can trust those in their group whereas others may not (would religion have a role here?).
And on religious affiliation and social capital - "the social ties embodied in religious communities are at least as important as relious beliefs per se in accounting for volunteerism and philanthropy...Connectedness, not merely faith, is responsible for the benficence of church people".
On individual involvement and altruism - depends partly on involvement when young, and also people who have received help are more likely to help others: "giving, volunteering and joining are mutually reinforcing and habit forming - as Tocqueville put it, 'the habits of the heart'."
Poorer people need (and may therefore seek out?) more social capital precisely because they lack economic capital and can have difficulty gaining human capital (eg barriers to education). From a US perspective, Putnam suggests that church attendance is what influences black youths ability to gain employment, and this is becuase of the social networking effects rather than beliefs. need to check references to this in Kidd book on nineteenth century
On this, Putnam points out the role of ethnic networks as employment networks as they can use employees to recruit and train new employees as well as resulting in good employee morale and more company loyalty. It can also be related to acquisition of financing for smaller businesses, who can lack access to traditional financial institutions (and which were much more limited in nineteenth century London).
Saturday 17 February 2007
Social capital and historians
So finally I need to start writing some proper stuff on social capital. So I've been reading an article by Dario Gaggio (Do social historians need social capital?, from November 2004's Social History Review), which has a overview of social capital debates as well as a (shorter) section on whether social capital is a useful concept for social historians. Although it has the phrase "metabolized the lessons of post-modernism and critical theory", it makes some good criticisms of how Putnam (and via him, the wider public discourse) views social capital.
In particular, there is criticism of how the creation of social capital is not necessarily simply a "byproduct of actions pursued for goals other than its creation and nurturing" but can be more "instrumental" with individuals pursuing links for their own benefit ("goal seeking behaviour"). Which can be seen in terms of, for instance, Jewish elite involvement in charities in the 1800s. Related to this, Gaggio discusses the issue of who possesses social capital. Putnam's area approach implies that it belongs to communities or polities rather than individuals or networks (though networks could be communities?). Putnam's use of social capital is accused of being ill equipped to make sense of conflict ("Putnam never tells us who shares the shared goals whose attainment social capital is supposed to facilitate") but his forthcoming work on social capital and diversity may address this. The emphasis on individuals and networks use of social capital is probably more useful in my studies as I'm looking at social capital in relation to how it affected immigrant groups with the host community and relationships and change within those immigrant groups. Using it in this way should also be helpful in looking at how the poor used informal networks of help, though that's a bit outside my core area (which is also the flip-side of Bourdieu's work showing how the rich used it to maintain their position and it's role in preserving inequality.
Gaggio contrasts Coleman and Putnam's use of social capital as a "publicly owned, unintentionally produced and functionally deployed resource" (which he says is of little use to historians and is "theoretically and methodologically regressive") and Portes and McIntosh who view it as "the property of individuals and networks, as a resource that is constructed in the arena of political deliberation, and therefore as a relational practice that can be as productive of conflict and inequalities as of order and humanity".
He rounds it off by having a go at economists for using social capital to colonise sociology and other social scienses. preferring instead to use the phrase "political economy" which acknowledges how economic action is embedded in networks (cultures?) of social, political and cultural relations.
One critcism of the article though, is that it ignores that Putnam is seeking to engage in public policy debates. Putnam shows that high social capital for individuals and communities provides positive outcomes. Although his analysis may not be of use to historians, it does address those policy makers by demonstrating that policies that support social capital provide positive outcomes for individuals and communities. His critics don't seem to be me to be offering anything to policy makers to suggest alternative policies.
In particular, there is criticism of how the creation of social capital is not necessarily simply a "byproduct of actions pursued for goals other than its creation and nurturing" but can be more "instrumental" with individuals pursuing links for their own benefit ("goal seeking behaviour"). Which can be seen in terms of, for instance, Jewish elite involvement in charities in the 1800s. Related to this, Gaggio discusses the issue of who possesses social capital. Putnam's area approach implies that it belongs to communities or polities rather than individuals or networks (though networks could be communities?). Putnam's use of social capital is accused of being ill equipped to make sense of conflict ("Putnam never tells us who shares the shared goals whose attainment social capital is supposed to facilitate") but his forthcoming work on social capital and diversity may address this. The emphasis on individuals and networks use of social capital is probably more useful in my studies as I'm looking at social capital in relation to how it affected immigrant groups with the host community and relationships and change within those immigrant groups. Using it in this way should also be helpful in looking at how the poor used informal networks of help, though that's a bit outside my core area (which is also the flip-side of Bourdieu's work showing how the rich used it to maintain their position and it's role in preserving inequality.
Gaggio contrasts Coleman and Putnam's use of social capital as a "publicly owned, unintentionally produced and functionally deployed resource" (which he says is of little use to historians and is "theoretically and methodologically regressive") and Portes and McIntosh who view it as "the property of individuals and networks, as a resource that is constructed in the arena of political deliberation, and therefore as a relational practice that can be as productive of conflict and inequalities as of order and humanity".
He rounds it off by having a go at economists for using social capital to colonise sociology and other social scienses. preferring instead to use the phrase "political economy" which acknowledges how economic action is embedded in networks (cultures?) of social, political and cultural relations.
One critcism of the article though, is that it ignores that Putnam is seeking to engage in public policy debates. Putnam shows that high social capital for individuals and communities provides positive outcomes. Although his analysis may not be of use to historians, it does address those policy makers by demonstrating that policies that support social capital provide positive outcomes for individuals and communities. His critics don't seem to be me to be offering anything to policy makers to suggest alternative policies.
Thursday 8 February 2007
Historians use of "social control"
Historians have a tendency to try and grab ideas and theory from sociology, anthropology and other studies (perhaps as they go out of fashion in their original field) so it's quite easy to then criticise them for a relatively loose use of those concepts. Social capital might be one of those concepts which can be used now (which is part of my approach in probably a very clumsy way) and social control would seem to have filled a similar role in the past. From the seminars I've been to recently it seems to be "space", which is a shame as that's another concept I'm going to use. Anyway, I've been re-reading two criticisms of its use by historians.
Michael Thompson has a good go at historians use of it in a ReFresh article from 1987. Because of its inherent ambiguity (as both a general statement and a term drawn from theoretical sociology) historians have ended up spreading "confusion and incoherence" and led to "superfluous and redundant verbiage". He seems to see the term as simply having "descriptive but no explanatory power" in relation to its early development, but that it's been seized on by historians eager for a number of reasons:
Thompson doesn't have much time for any of this, particularly arguing that social change (the rise of respectability) was more down to "the discipline of factory work, the enforcement of law through more professional police, an improvement in living standards, and, related to this, a process of emulation of embodying a self-induced socialisation of ambition and aspiration". As a theory for explaining class relationships, it's not necessary (you can just say that employers manage and control workers and ministers lead congregations) and all that is left are "a couple of words that act as a salutory reminder that all political, social and economic institutions have some effects on types and standards of behaviour and contribute to the shaping of cultures or life styles". Those moral reformers of the nineteenth century were more "socialisers" rather than "controllers". Which maybe brings us back to social capital...
Marco van Leeuwen's The Logic of Charity also discusses social control in an appendix. He also criticised historians who are in danger of seizing on it in their desperation for a theoretical concept to underpin their work. He points out that it's important to consider who is controlling whom, how they do this and whether it is still taking place. He is also good on the importance of evidence. Sociologists are often dealing with more comprehensive evidence, and often the opportunity to test hypotheses with their own research, but historians are dependent on available source material. For instance he considers three kinds of power analysis in this context:
Historical sources will tend towards the positional in the absence of other sources. He therefore suggests that "a rigorous positional approach combined with more fuzzy reputational and decisional analysis may...be sufficient for a preliminary account of charitable power".
In other sections of the book, van Leeuwen suggests that charities in Amsterdam did have a social control function in that relief would be offered in return for accepting the social order and that "taking charity meant abstaining from illegal survival strategies and bowing to certain forms of behavioural pressure by the elites". Dutch charity was also keen to maintain those from the middle and upper classes who had fallen on hard times, and was more generous to them - as was also the case in England. In England, this could be justified in terms of it not being their fault (they were more deserving than the idle poor) but it was surely more a case of Victorian hypocrisy mixed with a desire to maintain people in their station and thus social order.
Michael Thompson has a good go at historians use of it in a ReFresh article from 1987. Because of its inherent ambiguity (as both a general statement and a term drawn from theoretical sociology) historians have ended up spreading "confusion and incoherence" and led to "superfluous and redundant verbiage". He seems to see the term as simply having "descriptive but no explanatory power" in relation to its early development, but that it's been seized on by historians eager for a number of reasons:
Thompson doesn't have much time for any of this, particularly arguing that social change (the rise of respectability) was more down to "the discipline of factory work, the enforcement of law through more professional police, an improvement in living standards, and, related to this, a process of emulation of embodying a self-induced socialisation of ambition and aspiration". As a theory for explaining class relationships, it's not necessary (you can just say that employers manage and control workers and ministers lead congregations) and all that is left are "a couple of words that act as a salutory reminder that all political, social and economic institutions have some effects on types and standards of behaviour and contribute to the shaping of cultures or life styles". Those moral reformers of the nineteenth century were more "socialisers" rather than "controllers". Which maybe brings us back to social capital...
Marco van Leeuwen's The Logic of Charity also discusses social control in an appendix. He also criticised historians who are in danger of seizing on it in their desperation for a theoretical concept to underpin their work. He points out that it's important to consider who is controlling whom, how they do this and whether it is still taking place. He is also good on the importance of evidence. Sociologists are often dealing with more comprehensive evidence, and often the opportunity to test hypotheses with their own research, but historians are dependent on available source material. For instance he considers three kinds of power analysis in this context:
Historical sources will tend towards the positional in the absence of other sources. He therefore suggests that "a rigorous positional approach combined with more fuzzy reputational and decisional analysis may...be sufficient for a preliminary account of charitable power".
In other sections of the book, van Leeuwen suggests that charities in Amsterdam did have a social control function in that relief would be offered in return for accepting the social order and that "taking charity meant abstaining from illegal survival strategies and bowing to certain forms of behavioural pressure by the elites". Dutch charity was also keen to maintain those from the middle and upper classes who had fallen on hard times, and was more generous to them - as was also the case in England. In England, this could be justified in terms of it not being their fault (they were more deserving than the idle poor) but it was surely more a case of Victorian hypocrisy mixed with a desire to maintain people in their station and thus social order.
Friday 2 February 2007
Social control
One of the concepts I'm attempting to include in the literature review is a discussion of social control. My first attempt at this was pretty sketchy (based on virtually no reading) so I've been trying to do a bit more reading without immersing myself too much in 1970s theoretical sociology.
Anyway, as a start I've been reading the introduction to Social Control in Nineteenth Century Britain, edited by Tony Donajgrodzki. He quotes Talcott Parsons definition of three types of social control in tackling deviancy:
Donajgrodzki also talks about the debate over whether deviancy leads to the development of social control or whether, as 1970s radicals would argue, social control mechanisms "actually create, shape and sustain it" (quote from J Young, The Role of Police as Amplifiers of Deviancy).
Another issue he raises is the role of "outsiders" (such as religious or racial minorities) in having "a social control function for the community at large, diverting and channelling conflicts inherent in capitalist society away from the consideration of its actual source".
Social control is also not necessarily conscious (for instance in charity) and can be seen in "subtler means" in the nineteenth century from the middle class elites in terms of soup kitchens, price controls and "gestures to assert psychological solidarity" like reducing consumption in times of dearth" (which would surely have helped exacerbate any recession). These seem to me to be similar to the ideas about "soft power" in international relations (ie funding the BBC as more effective in promoting British interests compared to direct military action).
Donajgrodzki's main point about the nineteenth century seems to be the change from the early 1800s when social control was more informal, even through personal relationships when it was in terms of institutions, compared to the later 1800s when it was much more mediated through institutions. He also says that the breakdown of personal social control mechanisms was very alarming for Victorians as they had a lack of experience of non-personal social control.
Anyway, as a start I've been reading the introduction to Social Control in Nineteenth Century Britain, edited by Tony Donajgrodzki. He quotes Talcott Parsons definition of three types of social control in tackling deviancy:
Donajgrodzki also talks about the debate over whether deviancy leads to the development of social control or whether, as 1970s radicals would argue, social control mechanisms "actually create, shape and sustain it" (quote from J Young, The Role of Police as Amplifiers of Deviancy).
Another issue he raises is the role of "outsiders" (such as religious or racial minorities) in having "a social control function for the community at large, diverting and channelling conflicts inherent in capitalist society away from the consideration of its actual source".
Social control is also not necessarily conscious (for instance in charity) and can be seen in "subtler means" in the nineteenth century from the middle class elites in terms of soup kitchens, price controls and "gestures to assert psychological solidarity" like reducing consumption in times of dearth" (which would surely have helped exacerbate any recession). These seem to me to be similar to the ideas about "soft power" in international relations (ie funding the BBC as more effective in promoting British interests compared to direct military action).
Donajgrodzki's main point about the nineteenth century seems to be the change from the early 1800s when social control was more informal, even through personal relationships when it was in terms of institutions, compared to the later 1800s when it was much more mediated through institutions. He also says that the breakdown of personal social control mechanisms was very alarming for Victorians as they had a lack of experience of non-personal social control.
Thursday 1 February 2007
Too much text on this blog
So here's a photo of a Mexican zebra crossing (with added dropped kerbs to make it even more exciting)
Monday 22 January 2007
RJ Morris on voluntary societies
Roberts talks about there being three framing narratives for the discussion of moral reformers and voluntary societies - seeing it as an aspect of the development of capitalist industrial society; a "civil society" approach looking at the emergence of a "social sphere"; and one looking at its role in terms of mediating or resolving conflict, which he associated with R J Morris (and Brian Harrison?). This third narrative is one that is particularly useful when looking at the role of immigrant charities as a mediating space between host society (and power structures and elites) and immigrant communities (ie bridging and linking social capital).
Morris' Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites" includes various useful discussions in relation to this. He sees voluntary societies as mediating spaces which could help the "organization of consent" and in which different groups could come together to achieve (or at least try to achieve) some common aim but in which they could avoid the resolution of inherent contradictions between different groups of the middle class. These contradictions could be a barrier for state or local action, where the need to allocate official resources could lead to conflict (eg "evangelical and utilitarian competition for middle-class attention took place between rival voluntary societies, not as a disruptive contest for the resources of the state"). One might also use this to look at whether the notion of charity (or voluntary action) as inherently a good thing (a "public benefit") could mean that "reactionaries" could come to support what might be seen as a "progressive" cause. Was this true for immigrant charities?
Morris also places the development of voluntary societies in the context of the creation of a middle class mission and identity. They asserted their authority within the new society and sought to defend their place in that society by their voluntary endeavours on behalf of the whole community. But the middle class was also widely varied and involvement allowed for hierarchies within the middle class, with an elite assuming certain roles and titles in a system that ensures outside trust and confidence in the society, encouraged participation and sought to maximise donations ("the need for financial support, and in many cases for men of property and probity to act as trustees, in whom the property of the society could be vested, meant that patronage was welcomed by many members of lower status").
"The organization of consent which they continually sought was not only the consent of the subordinate classes to a beneficial domination but the consent of fragments of a potential middle class to cooperate with each other in seeking and sustaining this domination".
On the effect of voluntary societies on the working class, Morris like Roberts does not come down conclusively on one side or the other. He talks about late nineteenth century clerks and lower middle class as symbolizing the mixture of "defence and proud independence" that these societies sought but he also discusses the way in which the working class was able to take "items from the cultural package" offered them and to turn them to their own advantage "without compromising their own class identity or interest".
Morris' Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites" includes various useful discussions in relation to this. He sees voluntary societies as mediating spaces which could help the "organization of consent" and in which different groups could come together to achieve (or at least try to achieve) some common aim but in which they could avoid the resolution of inherent contradictions between different groups of the middle class. These contradictions could be a barrier for state or local action, where the need to allocate official resources could lead to conflict (eg "evangelical and utilitarian competition for middle-class attention took place between rival voluntary societies, not as a disruptive contest for the resources of the state"). One might also use this to look at whether the notion of charity (or voluntary action) as inherently a good thing (a "public benefit") could mean that "reactionaries" could come to support what might be seen as a "progressive" cause. Was this true for immigrant charities?
Morris also places the development of voluntary societies in the context of the creation of a middle class mission and identity. They asserted their authority within the new society and sought to defend their place in that society by their voluntary endeavours on behalf of the whole community. But the middle class was also widely varied and involvement allowed for hierarchies within the middle class, with an elite assuming certain roles and titles in a system that ensures outside trust and confidence in the society, encouraged participation and sought to maximise donations ("the need for financial support, and in many cases for men of property and probity to act as trustees, in whom the property of the society could be vested, meant that patronage was welcomed by many members of lower status").
"The organization of consent which they continually sought was not only the consent of the subordinate classes to a beneficial domination but the consent of fragments of a potential middle class to cooperate with each other in seeking and sustaining this domination".
On the effect of voluntary societies on the working class, Morris like Roberts does not come down conclusively on one side or the other. He talks about late nineteenth century clerks and lower middle class as symbolizing the mixture of "defence and proud independence" that these societies sought but he also discusses the way in which the working class was able to take "items from the cultural package" offered them and to turn them to their own advantage "without compromising their own class identity or interest".
Sunday 21 January 2007
Capitalist models for charities
Charities could be seen to have adopted two aspects of capitalist organisation - the voluntary society as joint stock company and the division of labour within the charity.
Charities set up in the eighteenth century and after are often seen to have adopted the joint stock model in their development as subscribing charities (eg Roberts: "investors in works of charity were to be entitled to make their decisions on the basis of full information as in any other area of market choice"). But Morris says that the major organisational sources were the non-conformist chapel and the pub (Southwark Living Streets meets monthly in the Royal Oak Tavern in Tabard St). So is this true for Jewish and Irish charities? Which organisational source did they look to?
On the division of labour, charities were often an attempt to reinforce direct social relations that were being weakened in the face of the separation of classes in work environments and the spatial separation of rich and poor. So charities aimed at being volunteer led to create that contact and to reflect ideals of voluntary service. But their history tends to often demonstrate a weakness to keep this ideal in the face of variable enthusiasm by volunteers and the difficulty for volunteers to make the detailed decisions needed. So for instance the Mendicity Society was forced to employ a full-time manager and introduce a standard work test. So even charities could not avoid the division of labour in their own work.
Charities set up in the eighteenth century and after are often seen to have adopted the joint stock model in their development as subscribing charities (eg Roberts: "investors in works of charity were to be entitled to make their decisions on the basis of full information as in any other area of market choice"). But Morris says that the major organisational sources were the non-conformist chapel and the pub (Southwark Living Streets meets monthly in the Royal Oak Tavern in Tabard St). So is this true for Jewish and Irish charities? Which organisational source did they look to?
On the division of labour, charities were often an attempt to reinforce direct social relations that were being weakened in the face of the separation of classes in work environments and the spatial separation of rich and poor. So charities aimed at being volunteer led to create that contact and to reflect ideals of voluntary service. But their history tends to often demonstrate a weakness to keep this ideal in the face of variable enthusiasm by volunteers and the difficulty for volunteers to make the detailed decisions needed. So for instance the Mendicity Society was forced to employ a full-time manager and introduce a standard work test. So even charities could not avoid the division of labour in their own work.
Reasons for formation or action by voluntary societies
Simple crisis followed by response? - eg Sierra Leone project response to "the black poor", Polish refugees in 1830s, fever hospital in Leeds set up following 1799-1800 typhus outbreak, etc. But (quoting RJ Morris) what these incidents did was "concentrate anxieties about disease, street begging, radicalism and poverty which already existed. Such incidents provided a motive for selecting from the variety of ideas and examples of action by voluntary societies which were current at any given time." (eg ideas about promoting settlement in Sierra Leone were already current as the black poor crisis developed).
Morris quotes the comparison between towns which encouraged the development of new societies and how examples of other towns were used to justify action (evidence based policy making?). This was also true with different denominations and ethnic groups (see Prochaska on different female visiting societies). Immigrant groups could also be used to highlight "mainstream" attitudes and actions - eg "if even the Jews are so charitable that they have set up a charity to...".
Morris quotes the comparison between towns which encouraged the development of new societies and how examples of other towns were used to justify action (evidence based policy making?). This was also true with different denominations and ethnic groups (see Prochaska on different female visiting societies). Immigrant groups could also be used to highlight "mainstream" attitudes and actions - eg "if even the Jews are so charitable that they have set up a charity to...".
Definitions of charity / voluntary societies (ongoing)
The posting on "moral reform" mentions a C19 distinctinction between moral reform organisations and charities (the original quote in Roberts is from a temperance society member) but others didn't see a difference - eg Edward Baines in 1843 lumps "mechanics institutes, literary societies, circulating libraries, youth's guardian societies, friendly societies, temperance societies, medical charities, clothing societies, benevolent and district visiting societies" as all bodies "for the diffusion of knowledge and for the dispensing of every kind of good" (quoted in RJ Morris Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites).
RJ Morris also has a useful also has a useful definition of voluntary societies as "organized groups of people formed to further a common interest. Membership was neither mandatory nor acquired by birth".
Should the definition in my study be "voluntary society" rather than "charity"?
RJ Morris also has a useful also has a useful definition of voluntary societies as "organized groups of people formed to further a common interest. Membership was neither mandatory nor acquired by birth".
Should the definition in my study be "voluntary society" rather than "charity"?
Saturday 20 January 2007
The moral reform tradition
Roberts (in Making English Morals) talks about the creation of a "moral reform tradition" in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The modern inheritors are probably those organisations working on behaviour change campaigns (like Living Streets' Walk to School and Walking Works campaigns. In the nineteenth century this was seen as linked to but separate from more direct charity, a division that still continues to some extent.
In the nineteenth century, these were more likely to be campaigns for observation of the Sabbath, to stop animal cruelty (or at least working class animal cruelty), or to promote domestic life rather than the attraction of gin palaces or other distractions about trying to get the working class to accept and adjust to market values of self-control and self-reliance but was also a reaction to the unsettling nature of the market economy and its ability to corrupt (particularly for those whose viewpoint was more evangelical Christian). It was a form of "compensatory investment in ccultural stabilisation on behalf of the class most self-consciously 'implicated'" in the rise of the market. "Middle class society depended for its collective peace of mind on being able to recognise a limit to the legitimate operation of market forces and to patrol that limit on behalf of all classes".
Roberts also discusses the effect of these moral reform organisations in ways which I want to explore in relation to charities helping immigrants at this time. He concludes that the effects of technology, work routines, urban commercial leisure activity, a more stable economy and more reliable wage and employment prospects resulted the rise of "working class respectability" but that "volunteer experimental effort at the very least eased the transition from a predominantly rural face-to-face society to a predominantly urban, class segrated one". He also says that these groups also gave an opportunity to working people to "transform themselves" from being the objects of moral reformers to being its practitioners.
As well as the effect on those who were the targets of their work, those involved also built for themselves a sense of community which helped create both a middle class cultural mission and a cross-class, cross-regional "national opinion". It will be interested to see the extent to which the actions of those involved in Jewish or Catholic/Irish organisations helped create "Jewish" or "Catholic" opinion.
In the nineteenth century, these were more likely to be campaigns for observation of the Sabbath, to stop animal cruelty (or at least working class animal cruelty), or to promote domestic life rather than the attraction of gin palaces or other distractions about trying to get the working class to accept and adjust to market values of self-control and self-reliance but was also a reaction to the unsettling nature of the market economy and its ability to corrupt (particularly for those whose viewpoint was more evangelical Christian). It was a form of "compensatory investment in ccultural stabilisation on behalf of the class most self-consciously 'implicated'" in the rise of the market. "Middle class society depended for its collective peace of mind on being able to recognise a limit to the legitimate operation of market forces and to patrol that limit on behalf of all classes".
Roberts also discusses the effect of these moral reform organisations in ways which I want to explore in relation to charities helping immigrants at this time. He concludes that the effects of technology, work routines, urban commercial leisure activity, a more stable economy and more reliable wage and employment prospects resulted the rise of "working class respectability" but that "volunteer experimental effort at the very least eased the transition from a predominantly rural face-to-face society to a predominantly urban, class segrated one". He also says that these groups also gave an opportunity to working people to "transform themselves" from being the objects of moral reformers to being its practitioners.
As well as the effect on those who were the targets of their work, those involved also built for themselves a sense of community which helped create both a middle class cultural mission and a cross-class, cross-regional "national opinion". It will be interested to see the extent to which the actions of those involved in Jewish or Catholic/Irish organisations helped create "Jewish" or "Catholic" opinion.
Psychological reasons for individual motivation (ongoing list)
Some thoughts on individuals' motivation for donating time or money to charity:
Tuesday 16 January 2007
Charities and the Poor Law (Alan Kidd book)
Just finished reading Alan Kidd's book State, Society and the Poor in Nineteenth Century England, which I should have read at the beginning of all this reading rather than one year in. It's a pretty useful overview. The main points for my studies are:
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