Communities Collaborating Blog

Maybe, like me, you missed it.

I 'm a big fan of Robert Putnam, author of Bowlling Alone, and Better Together , seminal works about how and why social capital binds, or increasingly, does not bind us together.  Last summer he published a new, apparently controversial study, called E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century.  

Here's how the Community Foundations of Canada site summarized  it in August 2007:

"Robert Putnam’s E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century, the largest study ever undertaken on civic engagement in the United States, is generating controversy as it draws a conclusion that runs counter to widely accepted beliefs that diversity strengthens civic engagement. Based on interviews with 30,000 residents in more than 40 communities, Putnam, a Harvard political scientist,,argues that the negative effects of diversity can be remedied with targeted efforts and that increasing diversity in America is not only inevitable but ultimately valuable and enriching."

Published in the Scandinavian Political Studies Journal, June 2007 – Vol. 30, Issue 2, you can download the study yourself here. 

I've also been following the Saguaro Seminar, whose mission is "both to improve social capital measurement and and the availability of social capital data and to undertake analysis of building social capital in a changing environment ...."  I found a great link  there to a recent and wide-ranging interview with Putnam (and a photo.... so that's what he looks like!) - a good introduction for those who are new to his work.

I hope these links may be of interest to other social capital junkies!  Any comments, or  do you have some links to share as well??