social capital

I'm reading up on the notion of Social Capital in the hope that it'll weave itself nicely into my dissertation topic (basically on gender-informed tech policies and their potential to help developing countries leap-frog over some of the women issues facing developed countries & ICT companies). The notion comes from Putnam (Hahvahd).

A bit of outrageous facts (you gotta wonder how he measures that), but still, interesting to ponder on. I should declare upfront though that I don't believe in going back to any kind of perceived wonderland in the good ole days, because I do believe that they are in fact myths for the majority of us (i.e. for all those who weren't rich and white and male and born in the right place).

The concept is that social capital describes institutions, relationships and norms, and therefore represents both a positive force as well as a negative, potentially excluding force.

He sees massive downward trend in political and civic engagement, informal social ties (friends at home), trust (massive employment opportunities for security guards for instance).

Here come the crazy quotes...

- 'as a rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half.
- if you smoke and belong to no groups, it's a toss-up statistically whether you should stop smoking or start joining' (this is probably more relevant to the europeans than the americans in 'the room').
- 'regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or church attendance is the happiness equivalence of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income. Civic connections rival marriage and affluence as predictors of life happiness.'

Morals of the story: they lied to you when they said money doesn't give you happiness. Get married quick. And volunteer - or stop smoking.

Well, I'm rowing, which counts as a social attendance thing. And what makes me very happy these days is that I get to be the 'stroke' of the boat, i.e. the person who sets the pace. Plus the coach gave me some nice confidence boosters compliments, so I'm slowly working my way out of the marasm and sluggishness of the post-election depression (a la post-partum).