The Power of Social Capital

This article critiques the recent turn towards social capital from the perspective of the history of colonial Uganda and the Gold Coast. Social capitalists emphasise the need for community solidarity and networks as an essential framework for development. This emphasis usually assigns a role to traditional institutions, which is interesting for historians of Africa because it calls up the ghost of the colonial doctrine of Indirect Rule. In fact, a very close parallel exists between Indirect Rule and social capital as tools of development. There is a crucial difference, however, between the two doctrines. While colonial officials used discourses about African community to shore up the power of the dominant elites, social capitalists tend to ignore the possibility that community-based policies might reproduce unequal power relations at the village level. For this reason, it is important to historicise social capital with reference to the colonial period.RésuméCet article, se plaçant dans la perspective de l'histoire de l'Ouganda colonial et de la Côte d'Or, critique le récent passage vers un capital social. Les capitalistes sociaux soulignent la nécessité d'une solidarité communautaire et de réseaux, cadre essentiel du développement. Cette emphase attribue généralement un rôle aux institutions traditionnelles. Ceci intéresse les historiens de l'Afrique parce que c'est un rappel du spectre de la doctrine coloniale de l'Autorité Indirecte. En fait, il existe un parallèle très étroit entre l'Autorité Indirecte et le capital social, en tant qu'instruments de développement. Cependant, il faut signaler une différence cruciale entre les deux doctrines. En effet, si les fonctionnaires coloniaux ont discouru sur la communauté africaine pour mieux étayer le pouvoir des élites dominantes, les capitalistes sociaux ont tendance à ignorer la possibilité que les politiques à caractères communautaires reproduisent des relations basées sur l'inégalité des forces au niveau du village

Capital (architecture · Colonial rule · Colonialism · Development economics · Doctrine · Economics · Gold coast · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social capital · Social science · Sociology · Solidarity · African history and culture studies · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · History · Law

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