Mobilizing grassroots' technological innovations and traditional knowledge, values and institutions: articulating social and ethical capital
Abstract
The Honey Bee Network has helped provide a sort of loose platform to converge creative,
but uncoordinated individuals across not only Indian states having varying cultural, linguistic
and social ethos, but also in 75 other countries around the world. What the Network is trying
to do in a rather quiet manner may transform the way the resources—in which poor people
are rich—are used in the future. These resources are their knowledge, innovations and sustainable
practices.
I first argue that the classical concept of social capital does not distinguish between the
trust in society created for social good versus social ‘bad’. For instance, the trust among
members of the mafia and other socially undesirable networks does not constitute social capital.
I am also trying to emphasize that part of social trust which is guided by higher ethical values
which may not have become social norms as yet. This is being characterized as ethical capital.
Finally, I conclude that the Honey Bee Network has tried to articulate the social and the ethical
capital of society at the grassroots to demonstrate how local individuals and communities are
trying to solve local problems without any outside help
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