In recent years, international development institutions such as the World Bank have invested considerable resources to understand non-economic factors that encourage communities to organize collectively, and which in turn foster economic development. Researchers have found that higher levels of trust and reciprocity in social relations translate into successful cooperatives, microcredit associations, communal reforestation projects, and other collective institutions that bring benefits to society. The ability to build and strengthen ties of reciprocity and trust, which in turn generate benefits of the community as a whole, has been called social capital. The purpose of this dissertation research in cultural anthropology is to complement current methods and theories that inform the concept of social capital. The project asks if the way social capital has been conceptualized, and the way data is gathered in order to assess its importance in economic development, ignores differences in political power and wealth that individuals enjoy at the community level. Currently, research in economic development holds that if a person enjoys healthy social relations in his/her community he/she has social capital. The goal of this research is to test this idea by hypothesizing that social capital is dependent on the levels of wealth and political power an individual enjoys. Research will be carried out with members and non-members of rural producers associations in the southern coast of Ecuador, with particular attention to differences and possible correlations between wealth, political power, and social capital indicators. Methods include participant observation, a structured questionnaire and intensive interviews about social networks. The broader impact of this research rest on its ability to inform economic development planners and practitioners to affect policy in rural areas in the world. As development institutions press on to include social capital in their agenda, a richer understanding of differences in wealth and power at the local level might prove beneficial for economic development policy. In addition the project will support the education of a young social scientist.
