Social Capital, Information Sharing, and Community Gardening

1. Social Capital, Information Sharing, and Community Gardening Troy D. Glover

2. Introduction Leisure and its connection to social capital: • Binds people together by common interest • Develops human capital, which can be shared with others • Connects individuals with each other to forge reciprocal relationships A community garden as a context?

3. Community Garden: A Definition • Organized initiatives whereby sections of land are used to produce food or flowers in an urban environment for the personal use or collective benefit of their members who, by virtue of their participation, share certain resources, such as space, tools, and water.

4. Purpose • To explore the elements and processes in the production and maintenance of social capital in the context of the garden • To examine the distribution of social capital among members of the garden network

5. Social Capital: What is it? • A collective asset that grants members of a social structure social “credits,” which can be used as capital to facilitate purposive actions • Premised upon the notion that an investment in social relations will result in a return to the individual

6. Use of Social Capital Theory • Consensus developing that social capital ought to be conceived as resources accessible through social ties that occupy strategic network locations. • Production, maintenance, and distribution.

7. Method: Narrative Inquiry • Collected personal stories from members of The Sesquicentennial Neighborhood Association (SNA) • Core members & garden volunteers • Text from newsletters and transcriptions of interviews • “Stories” were aggregated into a community narrative (Rappaport, 2000).

8. Reconstructing the Story of the QSMG • “Block-busting” and neighborhood deterioration • Developed a negative reputation • Grassroots organizing • The Queen Smith Memorial Garden • Displacement of illicit activity • Strengthened social networks

9. Relation to Social Capital? • Garden was a consequence of social capital • The garden network was the source of social capital • Did everyone who belonged to the group have access to the social capital present, though?

10. Communication: Newsletter “The newsletter’s probably the only way we’ve communicated to the whole neighborhood what the project is about” (Leif, core member). “Whenever we did a newsletter we would make sure we printed enough, and we would make sure they were distributed door to door so that everybody got them. So, yes, there’s always an effort to be inclusive.” (Holt, core member). “Well, whenever we have something going on, we try to flier. Even the public hearing about the methadone clinic recently, we fliered the whole neighborhood, even though the whole discussion had been on the e-mail list. But we wanted people to know about it” (Erin, Core member).

11. Communication: Newsletter “In my building, they, we had been talking about trying to get the newsletter. I talked to someone. Let’s see, I can’t remember his name. They had a place to sign up to deliver the newsletters. It is a good newsletter, I think. But the only way that I’ve been able to get a hold of one is once in a very great while when I go over to Ferrin’s and there’s a stack of them sitting over there, and I can just take one.” (Trevor, garden volunteer). “Ivan would say, ‘Well, I’ll let you know.’ Well, he didn’t always make it across the street. It seemed like he made it across the street all the time for other stuff, but he didn’t always tell me when things were happening. And they didn’t send out fliers and everything” (Sally, garden volunteer).

12. Communication: Email “Are you familiar with the internet network they have? They have regular contact with each other through that. People communicate, so, in essence, it’s pretty evident when you get around them that it’s a pretty tight-knit group of people. There’s an awful lot of interest in network and grass roots organizing” (Jeff, newspaper columnist). “One thing that probably got us involved faster than anything is the fact that when we moved here, Holt had kind of an informal e-mail list going, just an entry in his address book. I run discussion lists as part of my job, so I offered to make it a more formal listserv. I’ve managed the discussion list since then. Now people are in communication with each other more regularly than just when they happen to meet on the street or happen to have a meeting once every six months or whatever. I mean, we talk with each other everyday. And when something happens, we start talking on the list.” (Leif).

13. Communication: Email “That’s where the e-mail list has its limitations. You really need a face-to-face event to bring people together so they can see each other, and they can, you know, put names with faces” (Leif). “I imagine there are a lot more people who have e-mail who aren’t on the list. And those are the ones that I’m concerned about. I wish they’d be part of the list, too” (Leif). “I’m not terribly concerned about that because, it’s really an additional method of communication. It’s an add-on. It doesn’t really take away from other things that people can do, you know, meeting in the street or having meetings and parties and socials and whatever. I guess the only concern is that the discussions that go on there, at some point do need to be disseminated, and that’s why we have the newsletter” (Leif). “Although there hasn’t been one for a while.” (Erin).

14. Communication: Email “We didn’t, we only have been on the e-mail list for, what, a year? And before that, we never knew anything that they were doing until after it was done because that was how they all communicated with each other was on the e-mail network” (Sally, garden volunteer). “That’s another thing, if a person doesn’t have enough money to buy their own home, and to provide, you know, a nice car or something like that, they aren’t gonna have enough money for a computer, and to be able to get on the e-mail list” (Bruno, garden volunteer). “Ivan would come over and he’d say, ‘They’re gonna have a work day.’ Well, it was always when we were gonna be gone, so I couldn’t make it to the workday. I said, ‘I want to donate flowers.’ He said, ‘Okay, I’ll tell them know.’ Well, I don’t know whether that message ever got through or not” (Sally, garden volunteer).

15. Communication: Email “When we got on the e-mail list, that was when we really started being part of the group. That’s just not right. I’m sorry, I would have done a whole lot more the other three years I lived here” (Sally, garden volunteer). “I’m not part of the community just because I have a computer” (Sally). “I was really interested in doing things before I had a computer. I would ask all the time.” (Sally). “You have to have daily conversations, or not daily, but at least weekly or so. And the people on the e-mail list do, but the other people don’t, and so they don’t have any forum to voice their opinion. Nobody comes and asks them their opinion.” (Sally).

16. Communication: Email “The lady right next door here probably doesn’t even know that there’s a methadone clinic going in. She works. She takes care of her kids. She probably doesn’t even get the newspaper. I’ve never seen her carry a newspaper in the house. I know she doesn’t have a computer. Okay, she may have a TV, so she might have heard something about it, but doesn’t quite understand what the issues are, maybe. So how many people are like that in this neighborhood?” (Bruno, garden volunteer). “Way more than what are on the e-mail list. To me the e-mail list cuts them off more so because then they think they’re getting all of the concerned citizens opinions, as if only concerned citizens are on computers, which is really irritating” (Sally, garden volunteer). “I’ve really thought about putting up a bulletin board in my front yard [a little laugh] and posting some of this stuff” (Bruno).

17. Communication: Email “When they’re able to give their opinion, then they feel like they have a stake in it” (Sally, garden volunteer). “They [The SNA] think that everybody comes out to help. But once again, it’s the e-mail network, and maybe a few others outside of that, but very few” (Bruno, garden volunteer).

18. Discussion • Goals achieved via collective pursuit • Unequal access to the resources embedded in the garden network due to structural positions.

19. Conclusion • Social capital can be, at once, beneficial and costly • A successful garden project must work to strengthen weak ties. • Capacity of the core group could otherwise be jeopardized by resistant groups.