Trust and Social Capital in the Old City of Hyderabad: A Study of Self-Help Groups of Women, India

2021 ◽  
pp. 0972558X2110047
Author(s):  
Rosina Nasir
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Financial Success ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Rational Choices ◽  
Self Help Groups ◽  
Formation Of Groups

Why do people trust each other? Do people form groups through mutual trust or self-interest? How does the theory of rational choice and accompanying individualism affect the concept of social capital? Are social cohesiveness in groups and financial success related? Such questions generate interest in conditions promoting association and group emergence, such as trust, reliability, reciprocity, and shared values, which are inherent factors for cohesion. Self-help groups (SHGs) in an urban context are used to comprehend the aforementioned questions. The proposed study is based on the following hypothesis: the formation of groups is not based on trust but on material- and non-material- need-based individual rational choices that force them to cooperate with each other. It is found that a sense of insecurity among migrant women, an emotional need, led the formation of the imagined communities and has paved the way to construct trust. Thus, trust is found to be secondary in construction and sustainability of social capital. Castes, regions, and religions are strong factors; however, they are found to be less effective for the migrants than native SHG members. Therefore, among migrants, trust channelized itself vertically around a sense of fear.

scholarly journals Perceived Social Networks and Newborn Health: Evidence from Self-Help Group Communities in Northern India

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Ruducha ◽  
Xinran Huang ◽  
James Potter ◽  
Divya Hariharan ◽  
Danish Ahmad ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Newborn Health ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Health Advice ◽  
Advice Networks ◽  
Self Help Groups

The limitations of individual level interventions in changing behaviors to improve global maternal, newborn and child health have generated more interest in the patterns of social influence and decision making embedded in families, friends and communities. The purpose of this study is to expand the understanding of village dynamics in India and how first degree social and advice networks and cognitive perceptions of 185 recently delivered women (RDW) in areas with and without women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs) affect immediate breastfeeding. Data was collected in 6 blocks and 36 villages in Uttar Pradesh, India. The expansion of RDW’s social worlds and creation of social capital through the organization of Self-Help Groups in their villages allowed us to examine basic relationships and advice formation as well as perceptions of interconnectedness of known groups. RDW living in SHG villages and blocks had consistently higher numbers of relationship ties, health advice ties and higher density of health advice networks than RDW living in the non-SHG areas. RDW’s perceived knowing ties were also significantly higher between family and health workers in the SHG areas with related higher immediate breastfeeding rates. These results suggest that SHGs can accelerate community social capital and promote more accountability in the health system to engage with families and support the change from traditional to more evidence-based health practices.

Why Do the Bonded Fear Freedom?

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunit Singh ◽  
Rama Charan Tripathi
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Silica Sand ◽  
Social Intervention ◽  
Tribal People ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Agency Beliefs ◽  
Self Help Groups ◽  
Personal Functioning

The article discusses the case of the Kol tribal people who have been working as bonded labourers in the stone quarries and silica sand mines near Allahabad, India. It analyses the conditions and factors that have been responsible for keeping them bonded for many generations. The article details and discusses a social intervention made by us to ensure sustainable freedom for these bonded tribal. The intervention focused on conscientisation of the public and government departments and also of the larger community. It sought to reduce fear of freedom of the bonded, and attempted to change their agency beliefs. It also focused on developing the binding and bridging components of social capital to improve their inter-personal functioning in order to strengthen the SHGs (self-help groups) which they had formed and also the Federation of the SHGs.

scholarly journals Microfinance in Fishery Sector: Social Capital as an Agent of Empowerment

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 7059-7063
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Future Study ◽  
Fishing Communities ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Microfinance Institutions ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Self Help Groups

The paper is a critical review of studies to understand the role of social capital in the empowerment of fishing communities who avail the assistance of microfinance institutions. The findings showed that studies on empowerment of communities by social capital were less. However, a substantial amount of studies analysed the concept of deployment of social capital as an assertion for the repayments of the loans obtained from the microfinance institutions. In addition to the above, the number of studies on the function of social capital in the empowerment of fishing communities who obtained financial assistances from microfinance institutions was rare. Although a few studies that investigated the attainment of knowledge and balanced utilisation of the available resources were obtained, studies that concentrated extensively on the on the beneficiaries in the fishery sector were found to be scarce. There were a sparse number of studies that elucidated the characteristics of the microfinance institutions as well as the groups of the beneficiaries of these institutions that affect the generation of a strong social capital among the group members. In conclusion, this review opens up various avenues for future research. Studies that scrutinise the difficulties of the members of self-help groups in the fisheries sector in employing the knowledge gained and resources attained from social capital established in their group and the consequent changes in their performance in their business can be carried out. Apart from the aforementioned future study opportunity, comprehensive studies on the policies to develop the social capital of the groups of the beneficiaries of the microfinance institutions can be carried out

Theories of Self-Interest and Collective Action

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Monge ◽  
Noshir Contractor
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Transaction Cost Economics ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Rational Choices ◽  
Generative Mechanisms

Many social theories are based on generative mechanisms that are directly relevant to the emergence and coevolution of human networks. Ironically, as Monge and Contractor (2001) demonstrate, many published network studies fail to acknowledge or explicitly identify the social theories and generative mechanisms that motivate their research. In much of the rest of this book we examine a number of social theories in order to identify their generative mechanisms. These mechanisms can be used in conjunction with others to populate the multitheoretical, multilevel framework for the realization of communication and other networks described in chapter 2. For example, the theory of social capital suggests that people who try to exploit social holes will do so by seeking to improve their structural autonomy. On the other hand, theories of social exchange suggest that individuals and organizations forge ties by exchanging material or information resources. Of course, it is quite possible that people do both at the same time, thus requiring a multitheoretical framework. If this were the case, we would develop multitheoretical hypotheses. These would predict that statistical p* analysis of observed networks would reveal significant components for structural autonomy, mutuality, and reciprocation. Further, we would expect that other possible network components, such as transitivity and cyclicality, which are generative mechanisms in other theories, would not be statistically significant in the realization of this particular observed network. In this chapter we examine theories of self-interest and theories of mutual interest, the latter sometimes called theories of collective action, in order to identify their theoretical mechanisms. The self-interest theories are the theory of social capital, specifically Burt’s theory of structural holes, and transaction cost economics. The theory of collective interest that we examine is public goods theory. Social theorists have long been fascinated by self-interest as a motivation for economic and other forms of social action (Coleman, 1986). Theories of self-interest postulate that people make what they believe to be rational choices in order to acquire personal benefits. The strong form of this theoretical mechanism, originally postulated by Adam Smith, is “rationality.” It stipulates that people attempt to maximize their gains, or equivalently, minimize their losses.

scholarly journals Unleashing the social capital of self-help groups for strengthening seed systems in Uttar Pradesh, India

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 100522
Author(s):  
Walter S. de Boef ◽  
Samarth Singh ◽  
Pooja Trivedi ◽  
Kripal Singh Yadav ◽  
P.S. Mohanan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Seed Systems ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Help Groups
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