Social capital is a key concept in academic research and policymaking internationally. It focuses attention on social relationships, values, and access to resources in families, communities, regions and nations. But does the concept, with its focus on particular aspects of social life and the thrust of its influence on policy initiatives, hide more than it illuminates? Is it even harmful? Can social capital ideas be amended or adapted to bring other issues into view, or are there alternative concepts that are better able to address contemporary social, economic and political life? This edited collection brings together contributions, including from internationally renowned researchers, that assess social capital - as a theoretical concept, its shaping of policy development, and its practices in research and everyday life. Some reveal the conceptual lacks and policy drawbacks of social capital, and put forward alternatives. Others pursue mainstream models and their adaptation.
About the Author: Barbara Arneil is an associate professor in political science at the University of British Columbia. Her most recent research is a book entitled Diverse Communities: The Problem With Social Capital (CUP, forthcoming) and a co-edited volume on the reconciliation of sexual equality with cultural protections entitled Sexual Justice/Cultural Justice (Routledge, forthcoming). Iva Boovic is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Economy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on the impact of social networks on the performance of small and medium size enterprises, and the broader role of social capital in the economic transition of South-Eastern Europe. Keri Chiveralls is a PhD candidate with the Australian Institute for Social Research at the University of Adelaide. Her doctoral studies in Social Inquiry/Anthropology focus on social capital in Australian regional development. Her research interests include urban and regional development studies, the political economy of globalisation and counter-globalisation protest movements. Rosalind Edwards is Professor in Social Policy and Director of the Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group, London South Bank University. Her main research interests focus on families, latterly especially in relation to social capital, and she has written widely on a range of aspects of family life. Jane Franklin is Senior Research Fellow with the Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group, and Lecturer in Social and Policy Studies, London South Bank University. Her current work focuses on social theory and politics, feminist theory in late modernity, and critiques of communitarian and social capital perspectives. Frank F. Furstenberg is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His current research projects focus on the family in the context of disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods, adolescent sexual behaviour, cross national research on children's well-being, urban education and the transition from adolescence to adulthood. He is current Chair of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood. Janet Holland is Professor of Social Research and Co-director of the Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group at London South Bank University. Her research interests focus on youth, gender, sexuality and family life. She is also interested in feminist theory and methodology. Joseph D. Lewandowski is a US Fulbright Scholar in the Institute of Political Science at the Charles University (Prague). He is the author of Interpreting Culture: Rethinking Method and Truth in Social Theory (University of Nebraska Press, 2001) and numerous articles in Political Theory and the Philosophy of Social Science. Yaojun Li is a Reader in Sociological Analysis, Birmingham University. His research interests are in social mobility and social stratification, socio-political engagement, ethnicity, work-life, and statistical analysis. Recent publications have appeared in many top sociology journals. He has conducted funded research for the ESRC and other Government agencies. Lucinda Platt is Lecturer at the University of Essex. She teaches and researches in the areas of social policy, inequality, and ethnicity, with a particular focus on child poverty and ethnic minority disadvantage. Simon Procter is a music therapist working in mental health services. He is Research Assistant at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre, London, part of the Sociology of the Arts working group at Exeter University, and Editor of the British Journal of Music Therapy. Pedro Ramos Pinto is completing a PhD at the Faculty of History, Cambridge University, on urban grassroots movements in Lisbon during Portugal's transition to democracy. He is interested in social capital in relation to social movements, civil society and forms of grassroots political participation in historical and international perspective. Tracey Reynolds is a Senior Research Fellow in the Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group at London South Bank University. She is interested in parenting and family relationships, especially in relation to racial/ethnic identities, and the black family. She is the author of Caribbean Mothers: Identity and Experience in the UK (The Tufnell Press, 2005). Mike Savage is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, where he is co-director of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC). His research interests are in social stratification, urban change, and historical sociology. Nicole Schaefer-McDaniel is a doctoral candidate in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Originally from Germany, her research interests include social capital in children, children's health, and neighbourhood effects on children. Gindo Tampubolon is a research associate at the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester. His interests revolve around methods and substances of social networks, social capital and cultural capital. He has also published on medical innovation and economic development. Paul Thompson is Research Professor in Sociology at the University of Essex and a Research Fellow at the Young Foundation. He is Founder-Editor of Oral History and Founder of the National Life Story Collection at the British Library. He is a pioneer of oral history in Europe and author of the international classic The Voice of the Past. Elisabetta Zontini is a Research Fellow in the Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group at London South Bank University, and Visiting Fellow at the International Gender Studies Centre, Oxford University. She has published on gender and migration in Southern Europe, and her current work is on Italian families, rituals and care provision in a transnational world.