Assessment of Social Capital in Two Rural Communities through Application of a Network Based Measurement

The paper presents the results of social capital measurement in two rural Bangladeshi communities by using a network based measurement technique. The study was conducted in Purbadhala upazila under Netrokona district among the members of two neighbouring communities – a fishing community involved in community based fisheries management (CBFM) and a farming community having no such involvement. Social capital was measured in its three elements such as trusts, norms and network size across three network structures of the society, namely informal, generalized and institutional. Four informal, six generalized and six institutional elements of relations were used to measure social capital of the concerned communities. A 5-point Likert scale was used for the measurement of trust and norms of the respondents, while network size was measured by counting relations in the three network realms. Data were collected from 279 respondents through face to face interview by using a structured questionnaire in March 2007. The members of the fishing community possessed higher levels of social capital than the members of the farming community in terms of social trust, norms of reciprocity and network size across the three network relations. The respondents were categorized into four types through cluster analysis. The typologies obtained by the cluster analysis also showed that members of the fishing community possessed higher levels of social capital than the members of the farming community although the latter were in better positions in terms of a number of socio-economic variables.