Português - "[...] the Danish have a high trust society. Mothers (and fathers) park their children outside shops in their buggies while they enter the stores to shop. The level of trust allows the shopping to be more efficient and is an indication of the existence of social capital that we can see as it is redeemed.
However, the New York Times (1997, May 22) reports that this practice led to the arrest of a visiting Danish woman. She attempted to redeem the social capital built up in Denmark in New York by parking her stroller and entering a store. This was a non-redeemable environment because it was a low trust environment.
The norms of social control in the USA actually worked against this women. Such a norm might work in favour of children in some cases as it sanctions abuse in the non-trust society but in the case of Danish visitor it operated differently. The social capital did not exist. Why can we say that? It could not be redeemed. It did exist in Denmark. And the evidence is that it could be redeemed. In both cases the individual tried to redeem. In both cases they perceived it to exist. In only one case did it exist as it was perceived.
In the US we saw a norm of social control redeemed by an unknown person. By this we mean that someone called police when they perceived a women abandoning her child. The norm that was redeemed was one shared and developed in that society against abuse. The parent is responsible in the US for protection of the child because there is a much reduced level of social trust i.e. less faith in the general community as a caretaker. Both are forms of social capital but they are unique in that they are created in the differential social interactions and relationships of actual life.
Are they equal but different? No, the US form of social capital is diminished as it is less universal (i.e. not everyone would report the abandonment) and based on lower forms of cooperation (reliance on authorities to discipline). This means it is less social capital not a different type or form of social capital. Social capital is a resource just as the other forms of capital are resources.
It is important to reject the notion of a “negative social capital” or “downside social capitals” that are not resources but exclusionary forces such as the notion presented by Portes (1998) and Portes and Sensebrenner ( 1993) and Portes and Landholt (1995). It is interesting to note that the police intervention with a “law” in hand is an example of an institution and as such is indicative of a form of cohesion. Few would dispute that one of the things that keeps the US cohesive is its police and paramilitary structures that enforce order. Witness the problems when there is a reduced police presence.
We can see, in the above example, issues of trust, trustworthiness and norms [...]" (WHITE et al., 2000).
Keywords:
social capital availability,
production outcome,
timely intervention,
shared interests
Português:
sociedade de alta confiança
WHITE, Jerry P.; MAXIM, Paul S.; WHITEHEAD, Paul C. Social Capital, Social Cohesion and Population Outcomes in Canada’s First Nations Communities. First Nations Social Cohesion Project, Discussion Paper no. 00-7, Population Studies Centre, University of Western Ontario, London Canada, August 2000. Available from <
http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/popstudies/dp/dp00-7.pdf > and <
http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/firstnations/ >. access on 9 February 2015.
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GregorioIvanoff - 08 Apr 2018
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