Social Capital
What is Social Capital? I offer this definition from the Saguaro Seminar on Civic Engagement in America:
The central premise of social capital is that social networks have value. Social capital refers to the collective value of all “social networks” (who people know) and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other (“norms of reciprocity”).
The term social capital emphasizes not just warm and cuddly feelings [of community], but a wide variety of quite specific benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with social networks. Social capital crates value for the people who are connected and - at least sometimes - for bystanders as well.
So...what does this mean for me? Well, quite frankly, I think that this is going to be my “Thesis”. I think that the merits of community and its effect on the way a war veteran heals both mentally and physically from his or her injury will be at the forefront of my investigation.
Using the rehabilitation facility as a generator for community integration will be key. I believe strongly at this point in my research that community integration is worth exploring as a solution to this design problem. I think L.J. Hanifan put it quite eloquently when commenting on what the success of a local school depends on:
[Social capital is] those tangible substances [that] count for most in the daily lives of people: namely good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and families who make up a social unit... The individual is helpless socially, if left to himself... If he comes into contact with his neighbor, and they with other neighbors, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community. The community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his neighbors.
Likewise, the words of Thomas Greene in 1829 comment on my exact intentions with this project:
We come from all the divisions, ranks and classes of society...to teach and to be taught in our turn. While we mingle together in these pursuits, we shall learn to know each other more intimately; we shall remove many of the prejudices which ignorance or partial acquaintance with each other had fostered....In the parties and sects into which we are divided, we sometimes learn to love our brother at the expense of him whom we do not in so many respects regard as a brother....We may return to our homes and firesides [from the lyceum] with kindlier feelings toward one another, because we have learned to know one another better.
Smart man. Acceptance of our fellow man, regardless of mental or physical difference. And in 1829, no less! I can definitely see the merits of a community’s acceptance of an amputee patient and the effect on his or her morale as he or she works toward rehabilitation. There is a lot to be learned on this topic, and for the moment, I think that it will drive my research. All of these quotes can be found in the first chapter of Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, a (rather longwinded) commentary on the state of the modern American community.
More to come.
Thanks for reading,
R
ADVANCED TRAINING FOR THE ADVANCING SOLDIER
Thursday, October 9, 2008
