ABSTRACT
In this chapter we focus on culture and its complex interconnections with the concept of social capital. Our study is set in the context of recent preoccupations of the World Bank (followed by other donors) with the concept of social capital itself and the related construct that it can be built in order to promote economic growth and development. The adoption of the social capital concept is perhaps the closest that the World Bank has come in recent years in its recognition of the potential linkages between local cultures (notably cultures of enterprise), economic growth, and development. That is not to say that we agree that culture is social capital – or vice versa. Far from it, indeed! Our thesis is rather that the World Bank has taken up social capital in a highly essentialized form – as group cooperation per se – in its development initiatives, while at the same time congratulating itself on its adoption of a more culturally (as opposed to economistically) oriented development paradigm. The Bank’s conflation of social capital construction with group activities, and its consequent efforts to promote development through supporting group-based initiatives, far from illustrating a cultural turn in its development thinking, arguably reflect a continuing lack of sensitivity to cultural diversity and the specific geographical contexts within which diverse cultural registers (elite, popular, and youth cultures, among others) evolve and interact (see also Nederveen Pieterse, this volume).
