views Social Capital in the same way as Coleman and Bourdieu. Both Coleman and Bourdieu acknowledge that Social Capital is embedded and inherent in social relationships.
Putnam, in his book Bowling Alone (2000), indicates that television is the main cause o f social decline. “He notes that in the 1950s, 10% o f homes in America had a television set but that by 1959, over 90% had television sets, and were busily watching them, hence leaving less time to socialise” Harper (2001: 10). Thus, Putnam ’s conceptualisation o f Social Capital includes face to face interaction among individuals in the community. People should show an interest in public affairs if they are to successfully achieve common goals. The bottom-up approach is crucial when people are dealing with disasters. Their participation is important in the period before external assistance becomes available. Although Putnam ’s Social Capital paradigm informs this study, Bourdieu and Coleman’s Social Capital models are also relevant and applicable to the study o f natural disasters.
From Putnam ’ conceptualisation o f Social Capital, the study deduces the following core elements o f Social Capital: reciprocity (social exchanges), voluntary associations, networks and trust. These elements, and those deduced from Bourdieu, when combined, produce a vivid illustration o f Social Capital. The study, therefore, was guided predominantly by Putnam and Coleman’s conceptualisations o f Social Capital in exploring how networks, relationships, information circulation, obligations, trustworthiness and norms and penalties enhance people’s resilience to floods and droughts. The foregoing examination o f Social Capital from different scholars (Bourdieu, Coleman and Putman) has shown that they had diverse but complementary understanding o f the concept.
2.4.1: Bonding (exclusive) Social Capital
The bonding (exclusive) type o f Social Capital generally refers to the association o f people who have strong bonds such as the family, kinship members or people who share the same belief systems. It is also defined as the social interactions and support o f individuals among homogeneous groups and intimate (close) friends. It is similar to the notion o f “strong ties”
(Granovetter, (1973) and that o f “homophilous interactions” (Harper, (2001: 11) and Lin, (2001) since it constitutes a kind o f sociological super glue that binds people together in spite o f the factors that can separate them. Individuals in this category have a strong sense of belonging.
Putnam (2000: 22) further postulates that “bonding Social Capital is good for undergirding a specific reciprocity and mobilising solidarity.” Everyone in this group has boosted confidence in that there is maximum support behind and ahead. Putnam (2000: 22) provides examples of this type o f Social Capital as inclusive o f ethnic fraternal organisations and church-based women’s reading groups. These are also regarded as dense networks and, according to Putnam (2000: 22), dense networks in ethnic enclaves, for example, “provide crucial social and psychological support for the less fortunate members of the community” . This can also be supported by the results o f the study that was conducted by Bokwa et al (2013: 189) in Southern Poland where they examined the impact o f network capacities on the response by local communities to flooding. They found that “bonding Social Capital enabled the strengthening o f memories about earlier events o f natural disasters and the exchange o f information about the possibility of a natural disaster, its mechanisms and possible mitigation behaviour” . This explanation indicates that bonding Social Capital has the strength to provide immediate support in the event that a mishap or disaster strikes an area because individuals have strong feelings for each other. Actors, unconditionally, feel that it is their obligation and responsibility to organise, arrange and act in such a way that everyone in the circle benefits since people in the group are drawn close as they already know each other” (Gittell and Vidal, 1998: 15).
Negative effects are common under bonding Social Capital because “by creating strong in
group loyalty, strong out-group antagonism is certain” (Putnam, 2000: 25). Community resilience to disasters is more likely to be reduced when “social groups that are more resourceful in terms o f power relations and financial constraints (local elites and privileged
groups) exclude other groups such as minorities, the poor, elderly and less educated from altruistic communities, especially during the response and recovery phase o f risk management (Pelling, 1998: 41).
2.4.2: Linking Social Capital
In linking Social Capital, connections are established between people who are either in power, or are in influential positions (politically or financially) and those in less fortunate circumstances. In this respect, Social Capital simply denotes the “relations between individuals and groups in different social strata in a hierarchy where power, social status and wealth are accessed by different groups” (Cote and Healy, 20001: 42). This form o f Social Capital can
“broaden the number of people who access various, generally limited resources and can work to reduce hierarchical inequalities and bureaucratic limitations” (McOrmond and Bobb, 2005:
13). Individuals can also build relationships with institutions and individuals who have relative power over them (Woolcock, 2001). The availability o f these people during and after a disaster lessens the burden for the victims.
Linking Social Capital may include civil society organisations (NGOs, voluntary groups), government agencies (service providers for example; the police), representatives o f the public (elected politicians, political parties and the private sector (including banks) (Grant, 2001).
Linking Social Capital becomes more valuable in terms o f increasing access to key resources from formal institutions and outside the community when residents in disaster prone areas are to successfully increase their resiliency. Victims themselves can do little to enhance their resilience and adaptive capacity to a disaster, but with external assistance the chances are higher that they can bounce back in the aftermath o f a disaster. Islam and Walkerden (2015) conducted a study where they examined how household links to NGOs promote disaster resilience and recovery. Although there were some challenges that people faced, their study proved that linking Social Capital increased the resilience o f the community as the majority o f the respondents highlighted how links had helped them to survive following a disaster. Linking Social Capital has its own limitations.
Unlike bonding, bridging and linking Social Capital are characterised by exposure and development o f new ideas, values, perspectives (Woolcock, 2001). The discussion o f all these three types o f Social Capital emphasizes that each form is useful for meeting different needs
and has its own strength and weaknesses as has been discussed in the above. In certain circumstances, all the three types can be used in the one community during and after a disaster.
Hawkins and M aurer (2010: 1788) note that they “found instances in which bonding, bridging and linking Social Capital were instrumental in aiding participants to prepare for, endure and mutually aid one another before and during the storm, in addition to recovery following the floods in New Orleans.” Thus, linking, bridging and bonding Social Capital played pivotal roles in enhancing the adaptive capacity o f the community to successfully cope with flooding.
2.4.3: Bridging (inclusive) Social Capital
Inclusive Bridging Social Capital refers to the relations that exist among individuals without strong bonds. It can also be explained as the social networks between and among socially heterogeneous groups (heterophilous interactions). These are generated from weaker connected groups or individuals. It is more prominent in a collective-action-situation where distressed and frantic group o f people who have related aspirations come together in a civil rights movement in a community. This encompasses people from diverse social cleavages such as the civil rights movement as well as many youth service groups and ecumenical religious organisations (Putnam 2000: 22). It is a direct opposite o f the operations o f bonding Social Capital and, according to Putnam (2000: 11), bridging Social Capital brings together people who are dissimilar. This type o f Social Capital enables people to move ahead especially during and after a disaster because it allows individuals to interact with new people who can also bring in new ideas. The new people do not only bring new ideas but become part o f an interaction process that allows cross breeding o f ideas which can help the victims o f a disaster move ahead. This form o f Social Capital allows the larger part o f the community to be engaged in flood risk management and this translates to an enhancement o f community resilience to disasters. This means that government officials, community leaders, NGOs, community members and church organisations, among others, need to work together to reduce the effects o f disasters. In this case, vertical and horizontal Social Capital which were discussed by Putnam (1993) and Porder (2011: 349) are considered as useful. Furthermore, in order to reduce the impacts o f disasters, community inhabitants need to have a sense o f community ownership, mutual understanding and social support. This way it increases the capacity o f the community to be more resilient to disasters.
According to Fukuyama (2000: 4) the “radius o f trust” is increased under this form o f Social Capital and residents in disaster-prone areas then have more access to resources during or following a disaster. According to Hawkins and Maurer (2010: 1789), bridging Social Capital, too, was instrumental in helping people survive the immediate aftermath o f the flood in Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana 2005. Connections across geographical, social, cultural and economic lines provided access to essential resources for families. They further noted that the type o f bridging Social Capital is common and indispensable following disasters, both natural and manmade. Moreover, bridging Social Capital allows different people to share and exchange information, ideas and innovation and it builds consensus among groups that have diverse interests. In natural disaster research, this type o f Social Capital can be of assistance to residents in disaster-prone areas as there will be a cross pollination o f information that helps people to successfully deal with natural disasters. This brings to the fore, the postmodern theory in the study o f disasters as some o f its tenets (celebration o f differences, equality, freedom and flexibility) may strengthen local community disaster management strategies.