Geographical narratives of social capital

Abstract

This paper calls for a re-engagement by geographers with the concept of social capital as a vehicle for framing narratives about socio-economic processes in context. Social capital theory is reviewed to illustrate how the desire for simplicity and parsimony in economics results in abstract theories of the social that erase context and reduce space to a static form. Going beyond this critique, a geographical framework is proposed for a revised social capital research agenda to produce social capital narratives grounded in the everyday practices of power, played out in real-world, sociospatial contexts.