Collective Social Capital Research Articles

Troubled waters? The disproportionate impact of lead water pollution: Evidence from three American communities

<p>Although water is considered essential to life and an important natural resource, disadvantaged communities, such as low-income and minority communities, are disproportionately burdened by lead exposure in drinking water. In this paper, we highlight case studies that have received national press coverage as well as recent examples of community lead poisoning hazards that are still ongoing across various regions of the US. We show through these three case studies of Flint, Michigan, Washington, D.C., and Birmingham, Alabama, that the severity and frequency of this pervasive public health problem are highly concentrated in minority and low-income populations, and thus they bear the brunt of the socio-economic impacts. We identify the use of sensors to improve detection of hazardous materials and decrease inequities in drinking water contamination. To address water-related equity issues, we call for a sustainable community capacity approach that consists of shared governance between those who live in a community and stakeholders, such as businesses and health services, who have vested interests in it. We conclude by highlighting ways that a community could build collective social capital, safeguarding its environment from lead poisoning through health literacy education. Promoting water literacy is highly significant since water knowledge is crucial towards achieving water sustainability and equity.</p>

Tourism Awareness Group Strategy in Strengthening Collective Action and Social Capital for Padang City Tourism Development

The focus of the study in this research is to analyze the strategies of tourism awareness groups in strengthening collective action and social capital for the development of Padang City tourism. The theory used in this theory is the collective action theory put forward by Eggertsson and the social capital theory put forward by Putnam. This research uses a qualitative approach with a data analysis process using the ideas of Miles and Huberman. Data collection methods were carried out in several ways, namely: non-participant observation, interviews and document study. This research focuses on the strategies carried out by tourism awareness groups in tourism development by combining 2 theories. The results of this research are that tourism awareness groups in strengthening collective action carry out various strategies, namely: 1) The desire to increase and maximize tourism, 2) Having activities carried out together, 3) Coordinating between actors in developing city tourism, 4) Forming groups tourism awareness group among teenagers. Apart from that, the tourism awareness group also carries out strategies to strengthen social capital for tourism development, namely as follows : 1 ) Building trust between tourism awareness groups, 2) Expanding networks between tourism awareness groups, 3) Following the rules and norms within the tourism awareness group

Community forest legislation in India: Rights-based polycentrism or responsibilization?

In India, forest rights of forest-dependent communities are democratized and decentralized under the Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA). This paper attempts to explain the weak performance of the community forest resource rights recognized under this legislation. We begin by discerning the enabling and impeding factors that have influenced the operationalization of the community forest resource rights. We found that support from civil society has been crucial in building collective action and social capital. Technical, financial and bureaucratic hindrances in addition to a conflicting regulatory framework were the major barriers. We conceptualized the framework of rights-based polycentrism by combining the rights-based approach and polycentrism, and using this lens analyzed the design of the community forest resource rights. We found that the legislation falls short of making the state accountable and repositioning the role of the forest department as a duty bearer. The Act assigns responsibilities of biodiversity conservation, protection of catchments, sustainable resource use and preservation from destructive practices to the local communities, without provisioning additional funds or functionaries. Also, the state has not played an enabling role by building agency, capacity and institutions, and continues to be substantially invested in local forest management decisions. We opine that unless these design gaps in the legislation are plugged, it will result in rights-based responsibilization and adversely impact the scaling up of decentralized forest governance. Other developing nations can also benefit from using the rights-based polycentrism lens to strengthen the design of their sustainable forest management policy.

Influence of personal and collective social capital on flood preparedness and community resilience: Evidence from Old Fadama, Ghana

Social capital constitutes an important resource in vulnerable cities of the developing world where formal disaster management capacities are weak, responses are limited, and socio-economic deprivations run deep along spatial dimensions. Yet, little is known about how the different types of social capital contribute to flood preparedness and better community resilience, particularly in informal settlement settings. Drawing on a survey of 391 respondents in Old Fadama, an informal settlement in Ghana, and using structural equation modelling, we found that personal and collective social capitals are significant predictors of flood preparedness and community resilience. However, collective social capital has a stronger predictive ability than personal social capital. Also, flood preparedness mediated the relationship between personal and collective social capital and community resilience. This makes it imperative for disaster managers and policymakers to recognise and work within the existing individual and collective networks, which has the potential to activate “soft” capital accumulation necessary to transition communities from vulnerability to resilience.

Linking individual and collective social capital: operationalization, association, and sociodemographic heterogeneity

Despite the ubiquity of “social capital” in sociological research, this measure has broadly been conceptualized as both an individual and collective level measure. We explore the link between these two levels within the United States using recently constructed scales of state- and county-level social capital linked to the geocoded 2000–2018 General Social Survey. Collective social capital is associated with greater individual-level trust and voting. However, heterogeneity analysis reveals substantial differences by race/ethnicity, education, sex, and marital status. Moreover, there is heterogeneity for individual-level confidence in institutions and social interaction frequency, despite no overall relationship between those outcomes and collective social capital. Only some of our results align with existing dimensions of stratification, showing the importance of being clear about the operationalization and level of social capital being studied and highlighting how the “advantages” of collective social capital may not extend broadly to all the members of the collective.

Innovation of Contemporary Chinese Urban Community Governance under the Perspective of Social Capital: Participation of Multiple Subjects Based on Community Proposals

To improve the modernization of social governance, the Chinese government has invested a large number of resources and policies into the field of community governance in recent years. This study takes the community proposal in China’s Experimental Zone for Community Governance and Service Innovation as research cases, conducts a multi-case comparative analysis, applies social capital theory, summarizes four different community governance models from the differences of emotional and institutional social capital, and individual and collective social capital, and analyzes the process of community governance and proposal operation with the participation of multiple subjects. The study finds that community proposals expand the possibility of public participation, which is an extremely important reference value for the process of urban community governance and social democratization in contemporary China. However, community proposals are still policy-oriented, administrative, and benchmark-oriented, and the participatory roles and functions of multiple subjects remain unbalanced. The key to contemporary urban community governance in China lies in tapping community social capital, expanding the dimensions of social capital, and creating a sustainable mechanism for social capital transformation.

Penguatan Pemahaman Tentang Fungsi dan Nilai Rumah Adat Lopo bagi Masyarakat Adat Meto di Desa Mnelalete Kabupaten Timor Tengah Selatan untuk Memperkuat Pembelajaran Sejarah

The problem with this service focuses on the degradation of the function and cultural values of the Lopo traditional house for the Meto indigenous people in Mnelalete Village, TTS District. This has an impact on the community because the Lopo traditional house which is a self-identity and collective social capital of the community is almost lost. As a result, the Lopo traditional house, which has the power of social capital, does not provide value and function, or meaning for the empowerment of the Meto people. Therefore, several solutions can be formulated through the IbM (Science and Technology for the Community) program including Helping to provide reinforcement and understanding, preserving the Lopo traditional house, realizing values, and strengthening functions and values. The methods used in this activity are lectures, brainstorming, and Focus Group Discussion (FGD)

Effects of Social Capital on Pro-Environmental Behaviors in Chinese Residents

With regard to the factors influencing pro-environmental behavior, environmental sociology has long been mired in the theoretical debate between the affluence hypothesis and global environmentalism in the West. This study explores the mechanisms influencing pro-environmental behaviors by applying social capital theory. Drawing upon the data from the Chinese General Social Survey in 2013 (CGSS2013), this study distinguishes social capital in two dimensions—individual social capital (ISC) and collective social capital (CSC)—and classifies pro-environmental behaviors into two categories: private and public. With a multiple linear regression model, the report reveals that ISC, based on network learning, social support, and social identity, and CSC, based on social norms and social trust, have significant positive effects on both private and public pro-environmental behaviors. The effect of CSC on pro-environmental behavior is much lower than that of ISC. In addition, females are more likely to perform private pro-environmental behaviors than males. This paper argues that social capital should be actively used to promote civic engagement in China’s environmental protection process.

Collective Social Capital, Outgroup Threat, and Americans’ Preference for Restrictive Immigration

Throughout parts of the Western world, populist nationalism has gained increasing momentum. Despite cross-national differences in populist leaders and parties, one common feature stands out: xenophobic prejudice. This paper examines in the U.S. context, first, a common assumption linking outgroup threat perception with support for restrictive immigration. Second, more importantly, this paper tests how and the extent to which collective (state-level) social capital independently influences the American citizens’ anti-immigrant attitudes, as well as whether it moderates the association between outgroup threat and preference for restricting immigration. Multilevel models based on a nationally representative sample show that people who hold higher perceptions of outgroup threat are indeed more likely to oppose immigration. By contrast, living in a state endowed with more social capital is associated with pro-immigration attitudes. Last, the association between security threat and anti-immigrant preference is weaker (stronger) in states with higher (lower) measures of social capital.

Volcano: Between Structural Vulnerabilities and Collective Defence of Honor in Communities Surrounding an Open Dumpsite.

This study analyzes the dynamics in which structural vulnerabilities are shaped and expressed in the day-to-day lives of people making a living from a garbage dump in Argentina. It is a mixed methods case study, qualitative driven with a collaborative cycle (2016-2021). The study is embedded in medical anthropology, social epidemiology and Latin America Social Medicine, with the focus on the ways people respond to inequalities locally. The findings contribute to the field of health disparities in three directions: 1) the description of patterns of segregation in South America peripheries, shedding light on cumulative disadvantages and multiple exposures; 2) the experience of living enmeshed in places with strong stigmas, revising the ways this source of discrimination become social suffering; and 3) the detection of the impact of collective action and social capital in providing material and symbolic resources for restoring dignity and honour that challenge depreciated status.

The Use of Social Capital in Teacher Research: A Necessary Clarification.

In this paper, we present a critical reflection on the concept of social capital. We argue that there is no such idea of an umbrella concept of social capital. Instead, two overarching conceptualizations of social capital exist, namely individual social capital and collective social capital. As these conceptualizations of social capital are completely different, we emphasize that studies using social capital as a theoretical lens should clarify the concept as well as be consistent in the interpretation of the concept, from its definition to its methodological operationalization. In this article, we first map the two different conceptualizations of social capital. Next, these conceptualizations are illustrated with well-known teacher research studies, followed by examples of studies in which individual and collective social capital are mixed. Finally, we discuss the consequences of the use and the mix of these different conceptualizations in terms of measurement methods. Additionally, implications for teacher education are presented.

Disentangling the impact of a multiple-component project on SDG dimensions: The case of durum wheat value chain development in Oromia (Ethiopia)

• Smallholder farmer’s participation in agricultural value chains positively affects the achievement of SDG2, SDG4 and SDG16. • Integrated interventions combining multiple components are more effective than stand-alone component interventions (i.e. one component only) in achieving SDGs. • Collective action is key to support smallholder farmer’s agricultural productivity growth and improved food intake. The overall objective of this paper is to assess the impact of a value chain development project – the AVCPO in the Bale region (Oromia, Ethiopia) – on smallholder households focusing on the relationship between the food security goal (SDG2) and other SDG-related outcomes such as education (SDG4) and collective action and social capital (SDG16). Possible co-benefits and synergies among the SDGs are explored using a variety of approaches ranging from instrument variable techniques to evaluate the project overall impact on the various SDGs, multi-valued treatment effect analysis to assess which project component is more effective in achieving the expected impacts, and causal mediation modelling to evaluate to what extent collective action and social capital can play a role in achieving food security and education. Our study shows that the aggregate impact is positive and significant on most of the considered outcomes, namely food security (SDG2) except diet diversification, education (SDG4) of girls but not of boys, and collective action (SDG16), while social capital (SDG16) is significant only as far as horizontal relationships within the community are created. Disentangling the aggregate impact, we show that combined treatments (e.g. training plus storage facilities and marketing through cooperatives) generally return larger impacts than stand-alone treatments (e.g. training only). Finally, our study finds that collective action (SDG16) is an important channel that favors food security improvement (SDG2) but only to a lesser extent better education (SDG4).

Collective and Individual Social Capital and the Impact on Incubator Tenants’ Graduation

Incubator tenants usually lack established business relationships and legitimacy. Incubators, therefore, aim to aid tenants in forming meaningful relationships that will contribute to their development. The literature on incubator tenants, including their development, naturally focuses naturally on when they are in an incubator. Valuable insights have been made on how network-based incubation influences the performance of tenants. However, the relationship between networks and performance is ambiguous, and the choice of measure plays an important role. Gradation is a clear indicator of venture development in an incubator. Nonetheless, few studies have focused on the impact of tenants’ relationships on graduation. This study focuses on the impact of social capital on the graduation of incubator tenants. It explores how tenants’ relationships impact their graduation by investigating the collective and individual social capital of tenants. A structural equation model was employed to study the impact of social capital on graduation based on data from incubators in the Wuhan Donghu High-Tech Zone. This study’s contributions are as follows: first, it provides insights into the impact of bonding and bridging social capital on tenants’ graduation. Second, it sheds light on the different roles of the collective social capital of incubators and individual social capital of tenants and their contributions to tenants’ graduation. Third, it provides a description of the heterogeneous mechanisms of individual social capital of tenants and their association with graduation.

Influence of Rural Social Capital and Production Mode on the Subjective Well-Being of Farmers and Herdsmen: Empirical Discovery on Farmers and Herdsmen in Inner Mongolia.

Rural areas are crucial to the realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Rural social capital is indispensable for these areas to fulfil the SDGs. As China pursues rural revitalization, it is essential to achieve the sustainable development of rural areas within the agropastoral transition zone (APTZ) in northern China. The same applies to the SDGs’ realization in other APTZs across the globe. From the micro perspective of individual farmers and herdsmen, this article collected 732 microscopic datapoints through repeated rural surveys, and adopted the multivariate ordered probit model to empirically analyze how the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen in northern China’s APTZ was affected by the individual (person) and collective (community) layers of rural social capital. Specifically, the production mode was introduced to study the relationship between social capital and subjective well-being, and social capital was measured by a self-designed theoretical analysis framework, which covered six dimensions and two layers (person and community). It was verified that the individual social capital and collective social capital were mutually replaceable in terms of the effect on the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen. Additionally, this article examined the influence of different production modes on the social capital and subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen, and discussed how the same amount of social capital contributes differently to the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen under different production models. The results showed that: (1) Social capital significantly promoted the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen, and social network was the leading contributor among the dimensions of individual social capital, while social trust was the leading contributor among the dimensions of collective social capital. By the contribution to the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen, the six dimensions of social capital can be ranked as social network > social trust > social participation > social standard > social fame > common vision. (2) Individual social capital and collective social capital were mutually replaceable in terms of enhancing the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen; when the individual social capital was insufficient, the collective social capital would exert a much greater influence on the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen; when the individual social capital grows, the farmers and herdsmen would depend less on collective social capital. (3) The same amount of social capital contributes differently to the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen under different production models; by contribution strength, the production models can be ranked as pure herdsmen (PH) > pure farmers (PF) > non-farmers/herdsmen (NFH) > farmers + herdsmen (FH). Finally, several policy suggestions were provided to improve the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen in APTZ. The results show that collective social capital eliminates the negative effect of individual social capital shortage on the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen. Thus, it is suggested to consider not only the construction of macroscopic hardware environment, but also to roll out policies and measures to improve the subjective well-being from the micro perspective of farmers and herdsmen. These suggestions are concentrated on the implementation of China’s rural revitalization strategy, and the creation of relevant institutions and cultural environments, as well as the optimization of the internal hierarchy of farmers and herdsmen’s social capital. The research results may help to promote the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen in rural areas within the APTZs of China and the world, and provide a reference and a path to realize SDGs in China and similar places across the globe.

Influence of Personal and Collective Social Capital on Flood Preparedness and Community Resilience: Evidence from Old Fadama, Ghana

Influence of Personal and Collective Social Capital on Flood Preparedness and Community Resilience: Evidence from Old Fadama, Ghana

Building engagement in online brand communities: The effects of socially beneficial initiatives on collective social capital

Using social capital theory, this study investigates members' perceptions of socially beneficial initiatives on collective social capital. A total of 359 valid surveys were collected from two types of online brand communities (OBCs). The results demonstrate that high levels of empathy can lead to increased prosocial behavior. In both product and social OBCs, social trust affects affective and cognitive engagement, while reciprocity impacts affective and behavioral engagement. Moreover, our findings show that the link between prosocial behavior and reciprocity is partially mediated by social trust. This study provides several implications for the management of OBCs.

Urban food policies and their influence on the development of Territorial Short Food Supply Chains: The case of cities in Colombia and Spain

Urban food policies (UFPs) have emerged as a key mechanism to drive the transition towards more sustainable food systems, with cities as the appropriate scale for their implementation. The aim of the paper is analysis of the boost that UFPs have given to one of the most widespread forms of Alternative Food Networks, these are Territorial Short Food Supply Chains (TSFSCs). For this, the territorial factors that strengthen TSFSCs in the cities of Bogotá (Colombia) and Córdoba (Spain), one being UFP, are prioritised using a multi-criteria model based on the Analytic Network Process. Based on this prioritisation, the way the UFPs interrelate with the other prioritised territorial factors in both cities is identified. Consequently, the influence of UFP implementation on social capital of TSFSCs is analysed through Social Network Analysis. The results indicate that there are four types of priority territorial sub-factors on which UFPs should have an impact in order to promote TSFSCs in the two cities. The first group is classified as means to achieve the other sub-factors. The other sub-factors are classified as ends. The main means are UFPs and partnership linkages. The territorial sub-factors included in the UFP are in the design and implementation phases of the policy cycle. Furthermore, UFPs foster bridging social capital, with actors connecting unconnected nodes. Finally, some of the reflections on the implications of UAPs indicate that the promotion of participatory governance mechanisms involving civil society is an important element to include in UFPs, given their influence on strengthening collective action and social capital in cities. This shows that a territorial approach in UFPs can have greater results in policy implementation. In this way the paper contributes, at the theoretical and empirical level, to recent debates on UFP approaches and the integration of key factors for food transformation in cities.

Collective action and social capital in family livestock in uruguay

Although the image of dispersed farms and isolated producers prevails over traditional Uruguayan livestock, in the case of family livestock, collective action is a frequent practice and constitutes the economic basis for their permanence and reproduction. The economic, political and social transformations of the 21st century, framed in progressive governments (2005-2019), launched a series of policies that promoted forms of collective action from a vision of integral rural development. This research seeks to contribute to the understanding of the collective action processes of family livestock producers on the North Coast of Uruguay. It proposes to apply Elinor Ostrom's analytical approach to coordination of collective action based on three modes: delegation of power, rule management and learning. The methodology follows three stages that combined different types of information gathering and analysis techniques. The results show the existence in the region of at least 50 groups of family ranchers, which were characterized and represent four categories or types (Integral, Economic, Basic and Productive). Regardless of the type, in all groups the processes of coordination of collective action differ in the degree of maturity reached according to the trajectories traveled. Some show an endogenous process of collective action that reflects a greater involvement of producers, more sustainable organizational processes and greater returns for the rural community and the territory. In others, this process is exogenous, encouraged by public policies, the construction of common objectives being more expensive and social interaction processes difficult. However, in all of them it is evident that the processes of formalization or institutionalization of groups legitimize, in a new context, practices anchored in the lifestyles of family ranchers such as mutual aid or shared management of assets. They are reciprocal practices and relationships that strengthen social capital and, in particular, trust and solidarity, and make it possible to overcome conflicts and crises of collective action. The three modes of coordination of collective action also depend on the social capital of individuals (network of inter-knowledge, educational and political resources, leadership capacity) and the capacity to strengthen collective social capital.

The social correlates of flood risk: variation along the US rural–urban continuum

Compositional and contextual characteristics of a place capture the collective financial, physical, human, and social capital of an area and its ability to prevent, plan for, and recover from severe weather events. Research that examines the compositional and contextual characteristics of places with elevated flood risk is largely limited to urban-centric analyses and case studies. However, rural areas of the USA are not immune to flooding. In this paper, we integrate social and physical data to identify the social correlates of flood risk and determine if and how they vary across the rural–urban continuum for all census tracts in the coterminous USA. Our results show that risk of flooding is higher in rural tracts, in tracts with larger relative shares of socioeconomically vulnerable populations, and in tracts reliant on flood-vulnerable industries. We also show that compositional social correlates of flooding are not consistent across rural–urban areas. This work widens the scope of discourse on flooding to attend to the heterogeneity of social correlates and the implications for policy and future research.

Where You Live Matters to Have the American Dream: The Impact of Collective Social Capital on Perceived Economic Mobility and the Moderating Role of Income

The current research develops and tests the theory that beliefs in economic mobility are affected by social capital at the community level, especially for low-income individuals. Integrating concepts from social capital and perceived economic mobility (PEM), this research hypothesizes that members of disadvantaged groups (vs. members of advantaged groups) are more likely to adjust their PEM depending on the social capital at the community level. Using archival data, multilevel analysis is employed to examine whether individual- or community-level social capital increases PEM and the extent to which income moderates this relationship. Consistent with our hypotheses, social capital at the community level is significantly associated with PEM and this relationship is stronger for low-income (vs. high-income) earners. Study 1 shows that individuals in communities with high levels of social relations and participation are more likely to have higher PEM than those in communities with lower levels. Study 2 replicates this finding with a similar dependent variable: negative prospects. Further, the PEM-enhancing and negative prospects-decreasing effects of community-level social capital are consistently stronger for low-income (vs. high-income) earners. This study extends the investigation of PEM and social capital by suggesting social capital as a possible antecedent of PEM.