Coping Strategies, Social Capital and Space

Abstract

The theme of this article is the intersection of social and spatial factors in local and regional development. Based on empirical locality studies in the Circumpolar Northern context, the article introduces the concept of coping strategies. Coping strategies include three dimensions: innovation, networking and formation of identity. These dimensions and the ways in which they are interrelated are considered to be important to the forms of local development that can respond to global transformations and transcend institutionalized social fields. Coping strategies are discussed in relation to the different conceptualizations of social capital, and it is argued that while social capital is an asset, coping strategies are socio-spatial practices producing and drawing on social capital. As social capital is a social asset, it is important to transcend common sense understandings of ‘the social capital of the region’; networks between actors in different spatial settings, and relations on a macro level, can also produce social capital. The spatiality of coping strategies can be understood in a continuum from mobility to territoriality, and this continuum can be combined - and not intermixed - with processes of bridging and of bonding. The aim of the article is to provide theoretical inspiration to understand the complex forces at work in local development under conditions of increasing mobility of people, goods and information.