Social capital

[jawnbc]

is “what ordinary language calls ‘connections.’ By constructing this concept, one acquires the means of analyzing the logic whereby this particular kind of capital is accumulated, transmitted and reproduced, the means of understanding how it turns into economic capital and, conversely, what work is required to convert economic capital into social capital, the means of grasping the functions of institutions such as clubs, or, quite simply, the family, the main site of the accumulation and transmission of that kind of capital…”

- Pierre Bourdieu, The Forms of Capital

Social capital is made up of all the knowledge one accumulates throughout life, based on social interactions. Including, but not limited to customs or cultural practices, social capital also includes how one interacts with institutions, authorities, and peers. According to Bourdieu, people who are marginalized economically are usually socially marginalized. Western democracy (in its various forms) claims to level the playing field; Bourdieu says social capital is not redistributed enough to truly supercede capitalism’s exclusionary nature.

As the saying goes, “it’s not what you know, but who you know…”

Comments

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

“it’s not what you know, but who you know…”

or what you know about who you know.................
muhahaha!

[jawnbc]

all twooo

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

Francis Fukiyama has a rather good book on the subject. The title is "Trust". It certainly influenced the way I view the world.

[jawnbc]

duly noted

[cachondo.livejournal.com]

hmmm.. I was just ruminating the other day on how better I could integrate concepts of symbolic violence into this paper I'm writing on the constructedness of risk where ethnicity and class intersect: sort of a thought paper on good intentioned clinicians working with Latino populations in disseminating HIV intervention strategies...

the only problem is that the sort of social capital that works with the 20 or social scientists I work with falls flat in the policy regime (Ryan White funding for grassroots orgs...)... it is too elite, and from their perspective bothersome.. oh well... just a mindufl ejaculation from an erstwhile poster

[jawnbc]

why can't th work suppport a notion that social capital operates locally?

[jawnbc]

Well there's always that positivist wanker Putnam's Merkunized version.....

[querrelle.livejournal.com]

Or as my Career Management Consultant would have it: 'It's not who you know, but who knows you.....'

[jawnbc]

and how they view you...