Networked Urbanism by Talja Blokland Mike Savage

Author:Talja Blokland, Mike Savage [Talja Blokland, Mike Savage]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409491293
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Published: 2012-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

Maintaining agency: do for others and expect returns

Another pattern in social exchanges occurred where people invested in doing things for others and, different from in the examples discussed above, assumed that such investments would eventually bring returns. Social exchange then is reciprocal, but a return does not need to come right then and there, and there are no given rules that guide the process of exchange. Yet because of the absence of such rules and the gap in time, participants have to rely on trust (see a.o. Simmel 1950; Misztal 1996; Eriksen 1995; Blau 1986; Bourdieu 1977; Coleman 1990). Transactions that are not monetary need trust for them to occur; or, as in Kees’ example discussed above, money can abort aims to build or renew friendships beyond the realm of transactions. One may derive a sense of agency from investing in doing things for others. One is in control of the potentials of support, as one has favours in the bank, to be cashed in at later times. The gift is of lesser value than the response, or ‘a present is a hen and the response is a camel’ (Bourdieu 1977, 198, n 7), so one can return one’s independence through supporting others before having to ask support, as shows Gülten, a 40-year-old woman of Turkish descent:

I: Do you ask financial help from family or friends?

G: No, but I do some chores for friends, so I can earn a little money. You do not get anything for free these days. You know, when you’d ask for a nickel, they’d ask two nickels back.

In the case of Gülten, the immediate repay meant she acquired a bit of money that she needed, but as accounts were then closed, she could not draw on these investments for other resources. Nor could she ask, as the price for asking would always be higher than the resource received, or the debt permanent and thus violating independence.

Accounts were not always settled right away. Our data provide many examples of people who changed their perspective on their social ties because their trust had been violated when they supported others and expected returns that they then did not receive – if only gratitude. For example, Courtney, 57 and in poverty for less than three years, gave shelter to fellow Cape Verdians without residence permits, but she stopped ‘having strangers in [her] house’. Her guests disappeared as soon as they did not need her any longer:

I used to help a lot of people, illegal immigrants without food. I took them to my place and gave them food and a place to sleep (…) but I don’t do that anymore. At the very moment that you’re helping others, that’s good, but now they don’t care about me. Well, I don’t need to be repaid, but they pay you no mind, they don’t even say hello. They’ve got an attitude.

Courtney invested in ties with people whom she hardly knew and her expectations of what she would receive in return – nothing but gratitude, may be – were not met.

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