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?

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.

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.