Social Capital Perception Preferences

It is sometimes difficult to separate our preconceived notions of what social capital looks like. We read 'Bowling Alone,' we try to define social capital, we look over tables of collected data, but what we end with is a personal internal image of the ways we believe strong social capital will manifest.

The problem, and I am growing more and more certain of its problematic nature, is closely tied to the problem of ego, which I have discussed previously. Our upbringing and previously internalized values and mores will implicitly impose themselves upon the ways in which we perceive social capital.

Being a postcollegiate Caucasian male, when I imagine a neighborhood teeming with social capital, I imagine community organizations, street clean-ups, a neighborhood watch. It is only by reflecting upon my own ingrained biases do I realize how destructive my own image-imposing model of organizing can be. It is becoming obvious to me that the very things which orthodox public agencies see as negative indicators are, in many cases, not indicators of poor network density, but rather signs of strong social capital.

I was walking a few of the students from my after-school earn-a-bike program home last week, and they were telling me how they would sit on one of their porches and rap, all day. This type of behavior is exactly the type of thing that would have made me nervous in the past: a group of poor kids shouting to one another, acting (apparently) aggressively, behaving in ways I would have associated with an area rife with poor social capital: after all, in my mind, social capital bears benefits like safe parks and quiet streets!

Social capital is not exclusively white or rich. Putnam tells us that areas which are more well educated and/or more well off financially tend to be the most likely to organize, to display outward manifestations of social capital. I would here assert that the usual measurements of social capital PREFER the manifestations of the upper-class whites: why should neighborhood watch organizations count any more than neighborhood rap battles?