The conversion of social capital into community development: An intervention in Australia’s outback

Unlike most social capital research which utilizes cross-sectional design, usually of existing statistics or surveys, the research presented here employed a deliberate intervention to mobilise social capital and study the dynamics of how it influences community development. Given that the aim is to understand the processes by which a social capital intervention plays out in practice, the study is qualitative and interpretive in nature. Following Staber (2007) it is argued that whether or not social capital is able to facilitate development depends on the specific context in which it occurs. The general context for this study was that of small rural towns in outback Australia, which are experiencing decline; where decline is defined as having a substantial reduction (over 30%) in population over the past two decades. This article examines four such towns and the way their particular contexts effect the way they mobilise their social capital to implement an intervention to develop their community. Following Putnam (1993), social capital is defined as “those features of social organization, such as trust, norms and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions”. Bourdieu (1985:248) defined the concept as “th