Cultural Pluralism and Social Capital in Garden City, Kansas

Abstract

Social capital is defined as: networks that enable access to resources--like getting a job through a neighborhood friend--and is associated with well-functioning societies. Robert Putnam's 2007 article, "E Pluribus Unum," characterizes ethnically diverse communities as inherently low in social capital. I went to Garden City, Kansas, a majority-minority community, to assess the function of social capital in a specific context. I used ethnographic data from the summer of 2007 and the Changing Relations Project to compare changes in social capital over time. The World Bank's measures of social capital--networks, cooperation, trust, and inclusion--were used to assess social capital in Garden City. My findings led me to conclude that large influxes of diverse people produced context-specific social capital in Garden City, contrary to Putnam's hypothesis which associates cultural pluralism with low social capital. Recommendations to further strengthen specific forms of social capital in Garden City follow the conclusions.