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Social Capital and Natural Resource Management

A Critical Perspective

University of Versailles Saint Quentin

Nicolas Sirven

University of Cambridge

Mélanie Requiers-Desjardins

Observatoire du Sahara et du Sahel à Tunis

This article explores the reasons why community-based natural resource management is not necessarily a panacea. One reason may be that the communitarian benefits associated with social capital formation generally focus on the structural approach (e.g., network connections, group size) and too rarely take into consideration the underlying cultural context in which these relationships are embedded. Using Bourdieu's seminal framework for the different forms of capital (social, cultural, and symbolic), it indeed appears that (a) social capital is costly to produce and (b) its outcomes on resource management depend highly on the cultural capital (values, norms, etc.) in which it exists. The reference to Bourdieu's social capital helps to introduce the analysis of power relationships in community-based natural resource management.

Key Words: social capital • natural resource management

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The Journal of Environment & Development, Vol. 16, No. 4, 355-374 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1070496507310740


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