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Tag Archives: social capital
Billiard balls and synapses, ice-breakers and… burritos?!!
[Update: Viv McWaters and “shifters,” from March 2011…] When I tried to suggest that meetings didn’t need to be sage-on-the-stage leninist atrocities, I was told that icebreakers are “naff” and “corporate.” Mr Defensive and Dismissive (DaD) has a point. “Ice-breakers” … Continue reading
Movement-building gimmick: “the skills in the room go round and round…”
So, in my unpaid consultant (cough cough) role today, I was ad-libbing about how you could make everyone in the room – from hardened activist to starry-eyed “newbie” (terrible phrase that it is) – see that their contribution is both … Continue reading
Posted in activism
Tagged cliques, movement-building, smugosphere, social capital, social movements
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The whines on the bus go round and round, round and round…
The left “extra-parliamentary left” is utterly hooked on proclaiming their own moral superiority, their victim status, on doling out little pats on the back to each other at miserabilist meetings/rallies. A shopping list of grievances. The grievances are all real … Continue reading
Posted in activism, competence
Tagged movement-building, social capital, social movements
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Modern Polarities – Capitalism etc versus active citizenship
On a train (I seem to be doing lots of mental coughing up of fur-balls on trains these days) a few days back I came up with an Idea. I started describing it in an email to a genius cartoonist … Continue reading
Resuscitation for meetings, with the help of a rhesus monkey…
I have done a fair bit of event-organising over the last few years, using relatively innovative formats (some stolen, some invented). What I found was that afterwards people who liked the format would come up and say so and then … Continue reading
Posted in activism, competence, fear
Tagged bizzzzness as usual, boredom, ego-fodder, meetings, movement-building, rhesus monkeys, social capacity, social capital, social movements
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Cultural Capital and border crossings
There’s more to be said on social capital/social capacity at a later date. For now though this on cultural capital made me smile. In Beijing I got to the Bookworm, a library/bookshop/cafe/meeting place. Most people are reading borrowed books, the … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, competence, humour
Tagged cultural capital, social capital
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Free to … Agree with our Lords and Masters
Social Capital or Social Capacity, as a (re)posting posed it a while back)? You are welcome to create “social capital” up until the point you resist the plans of your betters. Then you magically become ‘trouble-makers’. In local neighbourhoods alternative … Continue reading
Social capacity – not “social capital”
The recently ended “well-sharp” project aims to make academic work useful to activists. Not easy, but by these guys, very well done. This distinction – between “social capital” and “social capacity” is a really important one. Putnam is perhaps the … Continue reading
Posted in activism
Tagged movement-building, social capacity, social capital, social movements
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