Linking Indigenous Social Capital to a Global Economy



The research reported by Granovetter's provides some powerful insights into the
limitations of isolated and restricted highly dense networks. Nonetheless, it would be misleading
to assume that the solution to all bridging problems is to create weak ties. James Coleman, for
example, notes that the diamond trade was monopolized for many years by a Jewish sect that
used its strong tie linkages, based on kinship, ethnicity and religion, to build bridges between
merchants on several continents.32 The example illustrates that the essential characteristic of
bridging social capital is not its weakness or strength but rather its
extensiveness and
inclusiveness
. Similarly, Ronald Dore's study shows how the Japanese gained control of the
textile market through strong quasi-kin ties, based on a Japanese interpretation of Confucian
social relationships (the
iemoto). These relationships created long-term stable relationships
between suppliers, producers and sellers that provided a competitive advantage vis-à-vis firms in
other countries. 33

Both of the examples just cited are illustrations of the federal group solution that is
outlined in Olson's treatment of the public goods problem in large groups. It will be recalled that
this strategy employs strong bonding ties in small groups and links these groups to a larger
federated collective good. 34

The assumption that a variety of strategies may work to achieve the same objective of
building bridging social capital, from weak ties to quasi-kin networks, allows a greater number
of choices on ways to link the unique properties of a group's bonding social capital with it's
bridging social capital. An illustration of how different paths may achieve the same objective is
found in a study of the social networks of rural leaders in the American Midwest.

One of the authors of this paper, along with a number of other colleagues, designed a
study in the early 1990s to identify why, in the face of similar economic constraints, some small

14



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