The convergence of community development and participatory democracy philosophies and practices supports social networking as a key tool to address urban social issues. The proliferation of formalised social networks is examined here to provide a New Zealand example of global trends towards fostering ‘social capital’ to address urban social problems. Social networking is situated in a participatory governance context and critiques of neo-liberalism and Bourdieu’s formulation of social capital are used to consider divergent and often conflicting expectations and practices of networking. Ethnographic data are used to demonstrate that, for some ethnic minority groupings, perverse economic incentives meant that it was more advantageous to maintain a marginalised position rather than to participate in ‘community’ networks. Evidence of increasing levels of multiscale collaboration is qualified by such exclusions of some sectors of community and the continuation of strategic agendas developed without community input.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Auckland City (2004) Glen Innes into the future. Auckland City Council, Auckland.
2.
BernardH. (1988) Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
3.
BezansonK. (2006) Gender and the limits of social capital, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 43, pp. 427–443.
4.
BirnerR.WitmerH. (2003) Using social capital to create political capital: how do local communities gain political influence? A theoretical approach and empirical evidences from Thailand, in: DolsakN.OstromE. (Eds) The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptation, pp. 291–334. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
5.
BourdieuP. (1986) The forms of capital, in: RichardsonJ. E. (Ed.) Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education, pp. 241–258. New York: Greenwood Press.
6.
CraigD. (2004) Building on partnership: sustainable local collaboration and devolved coordination. Research Paper No. 15, Local Partnership and Governance Research Group, University of Auckland.
7.
CraigD.PorterD. (2006) Development beyond Neoliberalism? Governance, Poverty Reduction and Political Economy. New York: Routledge.
8.
CramptonP.DavisP.Lay-YeeR.RaymontA.. (2004) Comparison of private for-profit with private community-governed not-for-profit primary care services in New Zealand, Journal of Health Services Research & Policy, 9, pp. 17–22.
9.
CruikshankB. (1999) The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens and Other Subjects. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
10.
CuthillM. (2003) The contribution of human and social capital to building community well-being: a research agenda relating to citizen participation in local governance in Australia, Urban Policy and Research, 21, pp. 373–391.
11.
DouglasM. (1970) Purity and Danger.Harmondsworth: Pelican Books.
12.
EversoleR.MartinJ. (2005) Participation and Governance in Regional Development: Global Trends in an Australian Context. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
13.
FarrJ. (2004) Social capital: a conceptual history, Political Theory, 32, pp. 6–33.
14.
FukuyamaF. (1995) Social capital and the global economy, Foreign Affairs, 74, pp. 89–103.
15.
HancockF.ChilcottJ. (2005) GI visioning project. Ka Mau Te Wero Charitable Trust, Glen Innes, Auckland.
16.
HansenE. C. (1995) The great bambi war: Tocquevillians versus Keynesians in an upstate New York county, in: SchneiderJ.RappR. (Eds) Articulating Hidden Histories, pp. 142–155. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
17.
HerzfeldM. (1992) The Social Production of Indifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
18.
HillL. (1997) Cautionary notes on ‘social capital’, Women’s Studies Association (NZ) Newsletter, 18, pp. 29–32.
19.
ImrieR.RacoM. (2003) Community and the changing nature of urban policy, in: ImrieR.RacoM. (Eds) Urban Renaissance? New Labour, Community and Urban Policy, pp. 3–36. Bristol: Policy Press.
20.
KearnsA. (2003) Social capital, regeneration and urban policy, in: ImrieR.RacoM. (Eds) Urban Renaissance? New Labour, Community and Urban Policy, pp. 37–60. Bristol: Policy Press.
21.
KingA. (2001) Minimum requirements for primary health organisations. Ministry of Health, Wellington.
KretmanJ. P.McKnightJ. L. (1993) Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications.
24.
LabonteR.LaverackG. (2001) Capacity building in health promotion, Part 1: for whom? And for what purpose?, Critical Public Health, 11, pp. 111–127.
25.
LarnerW.CraigD. (2002) After neo-liberalism? Local partnerships and social governance in Aotearoa New Zealand. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA, August.
26.
LarnerW.CraigD. (2005) After neoliberalism? Community activism and local partnerships in Aotearoa New Zealand, in: LaurieN.BondiL. (Eds) Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism, pp. 9–31. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
27.
LeverJ. (2005) Govermentalisation and local strategic partnerships: whose priorities?, Environment and Planning C, 23, pp. 907–922.
28.
LeviM. (1996) Social and unsocial capital: a review essay of Robert Putnam’s ‘Making Democracy Work’, Politics and Society, 24, pp. 45–55.
29.
LuntN.SpoonleyP.MarairaP. (2002) Past and present: reflections on citizenship within New Zealand, Social Policy and Administration,36, pp. 346–362.
30.
MayouxL. (2001) Tackling the down side: social capital, women’s empowerment and micro-finance in Cameroon, Development and Change, 32, pp. 435–464.
31.
McKinleyP. (2006) The challenge of democratic participation in the community development process, Community Development Journal, 41, pp. 492–505.
32.
MolyneuxM. (2002) Gender and the silences of social capital: lessons from Latin America, Development and Change, 33, pp. 167–188.
MunfordR.Walsh-TapiataW. (1999) Strategies for change: community development in Aotearoa/New Zealand. School of Social Policy and Social Work, Massey University.
35.
NarayanD. (1999) Bonds and bridges: social capital and poverty, policy research. Working Paper No. 2167, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network, World Bank, Washington, DC.
36.
NarotzkyS. (2007) The project in the model: reciprocity, social capital, and the politics of ethnographic realism, Current Anthropology, 48, pp. 403–424.
PortesA. (1998) Social capital: its origins and applications in modern sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, 24, pp. 1–24.
39.
PutnamR. (1995) Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital, Journal of Democracy, 6, pp. 65–78.
40.
PutnamR. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
41.
RoseN. (1996) Governing ‘advanced’ liberal democracies, in: BarryA.OsborneT.RoseN. (Eds) Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Rationalities of Government, pp. 37–64. London: University College London Press.
42.
SaggersS. (2005) Negotiating definitions of indigenous participation in community development, in: EversoleR.MartinJ. (Eds) Participation and Governance in Regional Development: Global Trends in an Australian Context, pp. 195–209. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
StrathernM. (1982) The village as an idea: constructs of villageness in Elmdom, Essex, in: CohenA. P. (Ed.) Belonging, pp. 247–277. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
45.
ThomasS.MemonA. (2005) Reinventing local government in New Zealand? A critical reflection on the Local Government Act 2002. Draft Discussion Paper, Environmental Management Group, Lincoln University, Canterbury.
46.
WhitakerA.BanwellC. (2002) Positioning policy: the epistemology of social capital and its application in applied rural research in Australia, Human Organization, 61, pp. 252–261.
47.
WilshusenP. R. (2009) Shades of social capital: elite persistence and the everyday politics of community forestry in southeastern Mexico, Environment and Planning A, 41, pp. 389–406.
48.
WoolcockM.NarayanD. (2000) Social capital: implications for development theory, research, and policy, The World Bank Research Observer, 15, pp. 225–249.
49.
YoungI. M. (2000) Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
