Abstract
The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) engaged in an experiment to build social capital for the ultra poor in rural Bangladesh by fostering linkages between members of their development programme, the Targeting Ultra Poor (TUP), with members of the village elite, known as the Gram Shahayak Committee (GSC). This paper assesses the quality of these social ties through two theoretical lenses: the conceptualisations of Robert Putnam and those of Pierre Bourdieu. It also draws upon primary research gathered in Holholiya and Boragari, two villages where the TUP and the GSC have been operating for several years. The findings illustrate that BRAC did provide a vehicle through which new forms of social capital were created for the extreme poor. However, another reality highlights that such ties are laden with relationships of dependency. The poor also are not passive victims within a hierarchical system, as both theorists suggest, but exert agency and show defiance in subversive ways.
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