Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Social Capital
Social capital refers to the characteristics of a collection of individuals that
are deemed to influence the quality of social relationships in a community,
such as social trust, norm, and cohesion. In a society with large stocks of
positive social capital, rules will be enforced fairly and therefore those who
promote common interests can be rewarded properly. Social capital is
developed over time in a way that is unique to the community. What
constitutes social capital is subject to debate, but political engagement,
corruption, crime, and volunteerism are widely used as measures of social
capital (Narayan & Cassidy, 2001).
Many non-profit organizations strive to reach a large number of
communities in accomplishing their missions. For example,
Chicago Fair
Trade
(CFT) wanted to monitor progress towards increasing the number of fair
trade outlets in Chicago. GIS students created a map (Figure 12) that shows
where those outlets are located, and which community areas lack fair trade
outlets (Barron et al., 2011). CFT used the map to determine where they
should focus their outreach efforts.
Institute of Cultural Affairs
(ICA) collected
sustainability initiatives in Chicago's 77 community areas for circa 2012 with
the help of student interns. Students in the GIS program mapped sustainability
initiatives in the process (Paschen et al., 2012). ICA created interactive maps
to facilitate sharing knowledge and resources based on common interests
towards community sustainability (ICA, 2013).
In addition to its community outreach and information sharing purposes,
GIS can help build other subcategories of social capital—namely, political
capital, financial capital, and cultural capital. CBOs need to build and increase
political capital, access to decision making, in a community to accomplish
their missions effectively. CBOs do so by analyzing the local power structure,
exposing power relations, and educating the public on pertinent issues. GIS
can help exhibit uneven distribution of power and its consequences in the
community concerning environmental justice, zoning changes, site proposals,
and so on. GIS has long been advocated as a tool for public participation due
to its ability to help engage the public and to help build common
understanding on issues. CBOs make spatial narratives to advance their
agendas using GIS (Elwood, 2006).
Latino Policy Forum
mapped the Latino voting age population by election
districts (Figure 13) to devise place-based strategies for mobilizing their
constituencies (Hernandez et al., 2013).
LVEJO
exposed uneven power
relations manifested in spatial distribution of hazardous waste sites (Becerra et
