Diverse Communities
The Problem with Social Capital

Robert Putnam's social capital thesis re-examined from the perspective of women and cultural minorities.

Barbara Arneil (Author)

9780521857192, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 September 2006

280 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.57 kg

'For Arneil, the assertion and recognition of issues about diversity and social justice on a broad front in contemporary America fail to accord with Putnam's vision of what we may generally regard as the 'good' society. Arneil's central criticism is reinforced by a range of sophisticated arguments drawing on the women's movement, philanthropy, and civil action, as well as political theory, and the broader and critical perspectives of Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Cohen … Arneil's achievement in Diverse Communities may well prove to be like that of Friedrich Engels with his Anti-During in the nineteenth century: readers have remembered the critique while the work subjected to such treatment has itself passed into oblivion.' Harry Goulbourne Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies

Diverse Communities is a critique of Robert Putnam's social capital thesis, re-examined from the perspective of women and cultural minorities in America over the last century. Barbara Arneil argues that the idyllic communities of the past were less positive than Putnam envisions and that the current 'collapse' in participation is better understood as change rather than decline. Arneil suggests that the changes in American civil society in the last half century are not so much the result of generational change or television as the unleashing of powerful economic, social and cultural forces that, despite leading to division and distrust within American society, also contributed to greater justice for women and cultural minorities. She concludes by proposing that the lessons learned from this fuller history of American civil society provide the normative foundation to enumerate the principles of justice by which diverse communities might be governed in the twenty-first century.

1. Social capital, justice and diversity: an introduction
2. The progressive era: past paradise?
3. The present malaise in civic participation: empirical and normative dimensions
4. The causes of 'decline' in social capital theory
5. Civic trust and shared norms
6. Beyond Bowling Alone: social capital in twenty-first century America
7. Justice in diverse communities: lessons for the future.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Social theory [JHBA], Black & Asian studies [JFSL3], Gender studies, gender groups [JFSJ]