Feminist Citizenship Theory: An Alternative Perspective on 18 Understanding Women’s Social and Political Lives

Here we present three papers, originally given at seminars organised by the Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group, on women and social capital. Recognising that social capital theories touch on issues that feminism has long worked to put on the political agenda, we were interested to explore the harmony and dissonance between the two. Feminists have noted the ways, for example, that social capital theories focus on networks and relationships, without reference to relations of power and gender. They have also noted that social capital theories have a conservative slant, and a primary interest in the ways that people build consensus, rather than how difference is negotiated. Feminists engage with social capital in different ways. There are those who see potential for adapting the concept to express women’s creativity and participation in communities, recognising and correcting its universal qualities and gender bias. Others are critical of the theoretical and political assumptions that underpin the social capital concept, from its neo-functionalist sociology to its adherence to a troublesome communitarian perspective. Others still, argue that social capital theory is so detrimental to feminism that to ‘add women in ’ is to give it unwarranted credence. In this working paper we address the concept of social capital drawing on feminist perspectives, to think not just about women and social capital, but about the ways that mainstream social capital places women un-problematically at the centre of community life