Abstract
The importance of social networks among urban dwellers in Africa
has probably increased with the urban crisis, as the assistance
which can be expected from the state decreases and market based
entitlements decline. As they exchange material and practical support,
people construct informal rights or claims on each other, which
are negotiated and fought over. A renewed interest in the social
networks of the urban poor in African is evident both in urban research
agendas as well as in the agendas of international agencies. In
the discourses of international institutions and their associated
researchers, the social networks of the poor are being formulated
as one form of 'social capital', a notion that has reached hegemony
very rapidly. In this neo-liberal discourse, a particular view of
'social capital'has become dominant, in which 'social capital' is
bein portrayed as a crucial component in poverty alleviation strategies,
and as being able to cushion against the hardships and gaps created
by adjustment policies. It also ignores how "social capital"
may reproduce inequalities in society and the power relations contained
in networks. The neoliberal discourse on 'social capital', the paper
argues, depoliticizes the debate and reproduces the shortcomings
of earlier approaches (among others, the moral economy and the older
social network research tradition).
This paper is an empirically grounded critique of the above neoliberal
discourse and provides an alternative framework for analysing the
networks of the urban poor - a framework which one may call the
'politics of support mobilisation'. This alternative framework emphasizes
the wider structural context in which social networks operate, issues
of power and subordination in networks and the struggles of persons
who are subordinated in or marginalised from support networks. It
proposes a dynamic view of networks which, by taking into consideration
both the internal dynamics of social networks and wider processes
in society, facilitates the understanding of contemporary change
in networks of assistance. On the basis of data collected in the
city of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, the paper assesses how the support
networks of the poor are faring in the face of worsening urban living
conditions, how social relations of assistance are changing and
the consequences for the vulnerability of certain urban groups.
The data collected pertains to networks that the urban poor use
in their effort to sustain their income activities and their consumption.
It was part of a doctoral research project that was completed in
2002.
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