ABSTRACT

While the concept of social capital has been criticized for meaning too many things to too many people (Fine 2001), several core, recurring ideas seem to underpin its different uses. First, it is taken to refer to qualities inherent in or deriving from people’s social relationships. Second is the notion

that these qualities can have important implications for other dimensions of economic and sociopolitical life – at both the individual and collective levels. Third, a notion apparent in some more than other renditions, is the idea that there is no simple relationship between the structure of people’s social networks and their broader class, socio-economic or otherwise structural positions in society.