Disaster and Disability in Bangladesh - Behinderung und Dritte Welt

A RTIKELvantage in unison. Therefore bridging socialcapital, or rather cross-cutting ties amonggroups is often low. These factors are critical issuesfor disabled people, who like most otherpoor people, often lack contacts and membershipin organisations that could leverage assistanceor improve their lot. At the most basiclevel, disabled poor people have little if anycontact with other disabled people, while collectiveorganisations (other than those in urbanareas frequently set up by non-poor urban disabledpeople or their families) remain seriouslyabsent. Without these, they are unlikely tolobby governments and other parties. Evidencein fact indicates how poor disabled people oftenconfront the most basic of constraints toparticipation in organisations: geographicaldispersion, the inability to afford transport toattend meetings, inadequate information, mobilityproblems and lack of medical treatmentand adapted assistive devices, power differentials,and high direct, indirect and opportunitycosts (see for example Yeo 2001, Ingstad1995). Even more lacking, is linking social capitalor rather, contact with those in powerful positions(especially policy makers) that are capableof enabling access to resources not availablethrough lower level social contacts, itselfreflecting the often minimal political clout ofdisabled people and their organisations as votersand citizens, even when compared to othermarginalised populations.Within this context, the implications for developmentare the provision of support in buildingthe organisational capacity of the poor, andthe bridging of spaces between communitiesand social groups at different levels (hence enhancingbridging and linking social capital toenable access to new opportunities, informationetc.), without threatening and reinforcingexisting support networks and the security theyprovide (bonding social capital).Social Capital: the Negatives of anImperfect ConceptSocial ties are not without problems, implyingthat like other concepts, social capital is nomagic formula. Indeed, increasing evidence indicatesthat while social relations can enableaccess to resources, they do can also be ameans of control; exacerbate or maintain socialdifferentiations; exclude non-members; asource of conflict, violence, oppression andsubordination; and a threat to personal freedom(see for example Portes and Landolt 1996,Portes 1998, Narayan 1999, Fine 2003). AsPantoja (1999: vii) aptly notes: “if one acceptsthat social capital is a common resource thatcan facilitate access to other resources, oneshould also consider that under scarcity conditions–such as those prevalent in developingeconomies and particularly among the poor – itcan also become an integral part of the structuresof constraint.”In societies where inequalities prevail(whether on the basis of gender, race, caste,ethnicity or disability), more social contacts willnot necessarily benefit all people, especially ifthe structures and processes that disadvantagein the first place remain untouched - this ismore akin to addressing the symptoms ratherthan the causes. Similarly, the ambitious claimby parties such as the World Bank, to be able tobuild social capital, just like building a school,remains problematic, arrogant and resonateswith imperialistic overtones. At best, it remainsdifficult to conceive of social relationships justlike any other commodity that can be imputeda value, controlled and traded on a market,and it remains highly dubious whether any externalparty can objectively develop and shapenetworks and relationships that are not onlygrounded in long historical lineages and localcultures, but also which develop on their ownaccord in particular spaces and time and todeal with specific contexts and situations.Finally, an issue of major importance is thedevelopment environment within which socialcapital came to gain importance, most notablythe neo-liberal agenda 3 promoted by the WoldBank and IMF and forced onto cash-strungcountries through Structural Adjustment Programs(SAPs), and more recently Poverty ReductionStrategy Papers (PRSPs). In this case, in aneo-liberal setting typified by mass privatization(including health and education), cuts in publicsector size and expenditures, the vanishing offormal safety nets, and enhanced individualism,community may have simply been a convenientand cost-effective non-economic rediscovery tofill gaps (in information, services etc.) left wideopen by a vanishing welfare state. This is reflectedin the increasing fate in NGOs and notfor-profitsas government substitutes in morerecent years, and increasing reference to notionssuch as social inclusion and exclusion inthe North and increasingly in the South assynonyms for equity and inequity respectively.This therefore implies that the emphasis on socialcapital may be little more than a depoliticizedeffort in keeping the neoliberal wheelspinning at a consistent speed, while more importantand complex issues concerning structuralproblems and neo-colonialism are sidelinedor unaddressed altogether.10 Zeitschrift Behinderung und Dritte Welt 1/2010