The link between social capital and disaster resilience is increasingly accepted. In “Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recover,” Daniel Aldrich draws on both qualitative and quantitative evidence to demonstrate that “social resources, at least as much as material ones, prove to be the foundation for re-silience and recovery.” His case studies suggest that social capital is more important for disaster resilience than physical and financial capital, and more im-portant than conventional explanations.
Aldrich argues that social capital catalyzes increased “participation among networked members; providing information and knowledge to individuals in the group; and creating trustworthiness.” The author goes so far as using “the phrases social capital and social networks nearly interchangeably.” He finds that “higher levels of social capital work together more effectively to guide resources to where they are needed.” Surveys confirm that “after disasters, most survivors see social connections and community as critical for their recovery.” To this end, “deeper reservoirs of social capital serve as informal insurance and mutual assistance for survivors,” helping them “overcome collective action constraints.”
Capacity for self-organization is thus intimately related to resilience since “social capital can overcome obstacles to collective action that often prevent groups from accomplishing their goals.” In other words, “higher levels of social capital reduce transaction costs, increase the probability of collective action, and make cooperation among individuals more likely.” Social capital is therefore “an asset, a functioning propensity for mutually beneficial collective action […].”
In contrast, communities exhibiting “less resilience fail to mobilize collectively and often must wait for recover guidance and assistance […].” This implies that vulnerable populations are not solely characterized in terms of age, income, etc., but in terms of “their lack of connections and embeddedness in social networks.” Put differently, “the most effective—and perhaps least expensive—way to mitigate disasters is to create stronger bonds between individuals in vulnerable populations.”
The author brings conceptual clarity to the notion of social capital when he unpacks the term into Bonding Capital, Bridging Capital and Linking Capital. The figure above explains how these differ but relate to each other. The way this relates and applies to digital humanitarian response is explored in this blog post.
