Exploring 'Unseen' Social Capital in Community Participation : : Everyday Lives of Poor Mainland Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong / / Sam Wong.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter AUP eBook Package Backfile 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Wong, Sam,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press, , [2007]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Language: English
• Series: ICAS Publications
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (220 p.)

This volume argues that using social capital to eradicate poverty is unlikely to succeed because its mainstream approach mistakenly assumes that social capital necessarily benefits poor people. The inadequacy of that assumption, Sam Wong argues, calls for a reassessment of human motivations, institutional dynamics, and the complexity of structures in social capital building. Proposing a "pro-poor" perspective, in which poverty-specific outcomes are highlighted, he suggests an exploration of "unseen" social capital is in order-not only to challenge the mainstream understanding of "seen" social capital, but to demonstrate the need for everyday cooperation, which is shaped by social norms, influenced by conscious and unconscious motivations, and subject to changes in priority based on livelihood. A useful volume for both policy makers and practitioners, Exploring 'Unseen' Social Capital in Community Participation offers a fresh perspective in thinking about civic and social agency.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Summary contents -- Detailed contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1. Building a ,Pro-Poor' Social Capital Framework -- 2. Ethnography - Alternative Research Methodology -- 3. Historical and Cultural Contexts of Mainland Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong -- 4. Investing in Social Capital? - Considering the Paradoxes of Agency in Social Exchange -- 5. ,Getting the Social Relations Right'? - Understanding Institutional Plurality and Dynamics -- 6. Rethinking Authority and Power in the Structures of Relations -- 7. Conclusions and Policy Implications -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Annex 1 -- Annex 2 -- Index