ABSTRACT
Tourism is not only one of the more instrumental tools for enhancing social capital, but is likely to become even more important in a world where international migration for economic, political and other reasons has created diasporic populations from virtually every country and culture on the planet. Robert Putnam (1995a) has been credited with popularizing the concept of social capital, which he defined as a usable resource created by open, collective and cooperative networks built on relationships of trust ‘that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’ (Putnam 1995b: 665). Frances Fukuyama defined social capital as ‘the cultural propensity for people to seek solutions by establishing horizontal links that are outside the government or the state and organized by civil society itself’ (from Fukuyama 1995, cited in Association Management 2002: 75). Set in a postmodern or post-Fordist conceptual framework, social capital resources are not reduced by usage, but are instead strengthened and enhanced by greater levels of member participation (Ostrom 2000). Unlike traditional forms of economic capital, human capital, or cultural capital (all of which relate to attributes of individuals), social capital is situated in the quality of relationships and is not easily quantifiable or measured (Mohan and Mohan 2002). Friendship and goodwill are examples of this. They are best created through face-to-face interactions and they become resources when ‘mobilized to facilitate action’ (Adler and Kwon 2002).
