Diana Lempel

May 7, 2012

TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE SOCIAL CAPITAL ENTREPRENEUR

I don't know if I have a real strategy.  It's sort of like breathing.  I don't think I really have much of a choice in what I'm doing.  Just who I am. (Mimi Graney, 2012)

This paper attempts to lay the groundwork for a theory of the social capital entrepreneur (SKE). I argue that, if social capital is on the decline in communities of all types, and has been for multiple decades (Putnam 2000), then it is not enough to imagine that increasing opportunities and structures for social capital building will be sufficient to reverse this trend. Rather, I expect that we will also need leaders to create, implement, and grow those opportunities and structures. However, it may be that these leaders, who I term social capital entrepreneurs, might need different personal characteristics and professional skills than a business leader or an educator, for example. The literature on social capital does not yield much guidance specifically on this point, though it is implicit in many studies. The purpose of this paper then is to begin to define these characteristics and skills, for the purpose of 1) determining whether there is in fact an identifiable SKE character and function that can be identified, 2) guiding further research into the role and function of the SKE in social capital building, and 3) nurturing current and potential SKEs as part of a social capital revitalization strategy.

In order to begin a definition of the social capital entrepreneur, I first review the social capital literature in order to put together a hypothetical understanding of what a social capital entrepreneurship might be. In other words, I define my expectations for the SKE. Then, I provide three short character studies of social capital entrepreneurs, whose roles in community are very different but whose behaviors and impacts reveal the underlying characteristics that I hope to tease out. These characters are Mimi Graney, Executive Director of Union Square Main Streets in Somerville, MA, Otto Gallotto, President of the Haymarket Pushcart Association in Boston, MA, and Paul Manzelli, Bar Manager at Bergamot restaurant in Cambridge, MA. Finally, I propose ideas for future research that tests the efficacy and necessity of the SKE for social capital building, and that explores deeper components of SKE function.

Method

With all three character study subjects, I created opportunities for both casual interaction and formal, research-oriented interaction. My intent was first to experience the subject’s practices from the perspective of a community member, and then to try to see their practices “from their own eyes” through a semi-structured interview (interview questions in Appendix). In addition, I conducted embedded observation of each subject in their social capital building function, documenting their physical and linguistic moves, as well as the social interactions between the other members of the environment. Finally, I reviewed media coverage of the three characters in order to build a deeper understanding of their role in the city and their public persona, since the duration of my research was insufficient to yield a thoroughly nuanced picture.

At once a strength and a limitation of this study is its opportunistic focus on two SKEs that I had already encountered in the course of other work and research. Admittedly, this is not a formula for unbiased social science. Specifically in the case of Mimi Graney, alongside whom I have worked for an extended period of time. However, this close relationship has also afforded me the opportunity to build a broad anecdotal understanding of the social networks that she influences. I had built a relationship with Otto Gallotto for my thesis research on the Haymarket, and his function as a social capital entrepreneur was an unexpected discovery that led me towards a deeper understanding of the topic. Paul Manzelli was unknown to me prior to the undertaking of research; I posted an inquiry about the best bars for regulars on Chowhound, an online discussion board, and Paul’s came up as the community consensus. My study of Paul, then, can be understood as a baseline assessment of how to recognize an SKE without prior relationship.

Another limitation of the research is that I did not have sufficient opportunity to conduct structured research of community members, in order to assess more objectively the scale of impact, or level of success, of the social capital entrepreneur. My evidence to that latter point is unquestionably subjective and anecdotal. I will offer guidelines for remedying this limitation in my recommendations for future research.

I would also like to acknowledge the implicit biases of the research; it may be that, by investigating social capital building behavior in a participatory fashion, I both encouraged and observed more personable behavior than an average person might have elicited. In order to counteract this potential limitation, I attempted to observe all subjects “in action” on multiple occasions, so that I had diverse sets of observational data from which to draw. Second, it may be that the Boston area, where all three studies were conducted, has peculiar social capital characteristics that are not instructive for the field as a whole. These might be challenging to tease out, as a social capital entrepreneur is nothing if not of his context; I offer suggestions as to when I imagine findings might be context-specific throughout the paper. For all of these reasons, I reiterate that this paper is meant to be a provocation towards further exploration, and not a definitive explication of universally true characteristics.

ARCHETYPES AND EXAMPLES: SKEs IN THE LITERATURE

First, a point on language. I have chosen to use the word entrepreneur specifically because it connotes an undertaking, seizing an opportunity and nurturing of its outcome. I acknowledge that this term is problematic. It implies that building social capital should be in the purview of a private sector actor, whose actions are driven by market principles, such as basing success on metrics such as ROI, and valuing efficient service provision over more intangible process, an increasingly frequent mentality even in the social sector and our private lives (Hoschild 2012), as “the pleasures of the city have been largely reduced to consumerism” (Oldenburg 1989, p. 10). However, I have chosen the term because the idea of entrepreneurship connotes creativity, the building of something new and dynamic out of circumstances of scarcity. Therefore I do not envision the SKE’s social role coming from a professional role as a business person or a “manager,” though an SKE’s occupation may indeed be involved in commerce. Rather, an SKE might be a stay at home parent, a club organizer, a shopkeeper or “barkeep”, a bus driver, a member of the clergy, anyone whose public function supports the building of social capital, not as a business decision but as a lifestyle, public persona. The characteristics of the SKE that I outline will further define this distinction.

And by social capital, I mean simply a collection of social networks, and the potential impacts of those networks such as trust and reciprocity, shared identity and preferences, and informational flows. Social capital is not necessarily a normatively positive attribute of a community; it is however understood to be an important prerequisite or contributing factor for a number of positive community outcomes, such as health and emotional well-being, political participation and civic involvement, and educational outcomes. Social capital has been in decline across the country since the late 1960s.

From critical analysis of community case studies, theoretical discussions of civic engagement and social relationships, and empirical research on social networks, we might divide the study of social capital entrepreneurs into two categories: who they are, and what they do. I consider each component of the SKE in the following sections.

Who they are – existing Social Capital Archetypes

When social capital was at its zenith, Jane Jacobs undertook her quintessential description of urban village life (Greenwich Village, that is) in the Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). In the book, she describes a “self appointed public character,” who is

anyone who is in frequent contact with a wide circle of people and who is sufficiently interested to make himself a public character. A public character need have no special talents or wisdom to fulfill his function – although he often does. He just needs to be present…His main qualification is that he is public, that he talks to lots of different people (p.68)

Often, Jacobs describes, a public character is “stationed in public places,” with job functions like bartenders or shopkeepers. She chronicles a neighborhood shopkeeper, for example, who will hold keys for neighbors if they are expecting guests, or keep packages safe if they are not home to accept them. For Jacobs, the public character is just one component of a rich public life, with social networks produced by sidewalk contact and informal shared experience, and the sense of safety and mutual trust that comes from these informal networks and the feeling of “eyes on the street.” As she says, the character need have no special characteristics, other than the interest to have nominated himself for the position by interacting with many neighbors and building a relationship of trust and information sharing with these neighbors. While I find that SKEs are indeed self-nominated, the public character framing is insufficient for understanding the role and character of a social capital builder in a contemporary neighborhood, for it is likely that in most local contexts the public milieu in which Jacobs’s character exists is no longer present.

Mitchell Duneier provides a rich portrait of such a character in Sidewalk (1999), an ethnography of informal sidewalk culture in Jacobs’s Greenwich Village, almost forty years later. At the heart of Duneier’s sidewalk ecology is Hakim, an African-American book vendor. He recounts a conversation with Hakim:

Not long after we met, I asked Hakim how he saw his role.

“I’m a public character,” he told me.

“A what?” I asked.

“Have you ever read Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities?” he asked. “You’ll find it in there. (p. 6)

Duneier mines the Jacobs description in order to further a definition of public character: “what Jacobs means is that the social context of the sidewalk is patterned in a particular way because of the presence of the public character: his or her actions have the effect of making street life safer, stabler, and more predictable” (p.8). The public character acts as a support for the building and continuation of social capital in a neighborhood because of their reliable presence and public persona. Sidewalks, for both Jacobs and Duneier (in fact, the same sidewalks), are the locus for building this social capital, which accumulates through contact, casual communication, and the regularity of seeing each other. It’s the character’s place in the network that is essential; not the character himself. Still, Jacobs’s and Duneier’s portraits of public characters introduce potential components of the social capital entrepreneur: public orientation & visibility, self-identification, trustworthiness and possession of local information.

Duneier employs another instructive social capital archetype in his discussion of Hakim’s neighborhood role: the old head. According to Elijah Anderson (1997), “the old head’s acknowledged role was to teach, support, encourage, and in effect socialize young men to meet their responsibilities with regard to the work ethic, family life, the law, and decency” (p.2). An older black man who informally mentors younger men as they develop professional skills, “race sense,” and personal responsibility, the old head is an important component of the urban black neighborhood social capital, communicating job openings, building place and race-based shared identity, and supporting stability much like the public character. The old head is more than just self-nominated, however: he is educated, at least autodidactically, about the traditions and history of his neighborhood, he is experienced in a field of employment, he is respected as an authentic, established member of his community. Women often also serve this function, as Big Mamas, in a spiritual and moral capacity, rather than a professional capacity. While we need not imagine that social capital entrepreneurs will necessarily be “old,” these characteristics can be understood as indications of community legitimacy and investment, and the close relationship between teaching & mentorship, and social capital building more broadly.

However, studies of majority-minority inner city neighborhoods, such as Anderson’s Code of the Street, indicate that the influence of old heads and big mamas has declined in the face of industrial disinvestment and other socio-economic conditions that are beyond the scope of discussion here. Furthermore, while in some cases social capital building initiatives have been able to harness the social capital of the old head structure for teaching and mentorship in new settings (such as schools, Putnam & Feldstein 2003), in other cases old heads have proven unsuccessful social capital entrepreneurs, unable to take their nurturing, relational approach forward into a community building setting (Rollow & Bryk 1993). As such, this archetype cannot be understood as one that will drive the building of social capital in contexts of its absence. Like the public character, the old head derives its authority from its social context; we must also seek examples of individuals who have forged legitimacy of their own accord.

Social Capital Entrepreneurship in Case Studies

In addition to explicit discussions of specific social capital archetypes like the public character and the old head, case studies of social capital development provide numerous examples of individuals who support and build social capital, and theoretical discussions of civic engagement and social capital can offer critical frameworks for understanding what a social capital entrepreneur ought to do. We should take these case studies’ emphasis on the social capital entrepreneur with a grain of salt; every good story needs a protagonist. But even if a study overstates the role or influence of an individual, the way the individual behaves and his role in the case should be able to tell us something about the function of a social capital entrepreneur.

Ray Oldenburg’s description of the “third place” contains an implicit description of a social capital entrepreneur: the man behind the bar or the soda fountain, who facilitates the “informal public life” that he advocates. The English Department, a tavern in Santa Barbara, “is operated by a man who was banished from the English department at the local university….He had listened in seminars, classrooms, offices, and the hallways of various English departments. But the tavern, he found, was better; it was living” (p.29). One might assume that the environment of lively philosophical exchange, inquiry, and camaraderie in the bar was a result of the tone set by its erudite owner. However, Oldenburg does not describe what, if anything this man does to make his bar any more exciting or desirable than any other. We could extrapolate that the job of the bartender in this context is to set the stage for informal conversation, by creating the feeling of “at-homeness” he describes (p.40), and by guiding the conversation and setting its norms. Diana Mutz, in her study of deliberation in public life (2006), emphasized the need to re-teach citizens, in informal settings, how to have civil conversations with people of different viewpoints; if her analysis is accurate, it would take more than a congenial environment to stimulate the kind of discourse that Oldenburg considers so valuable. A social capital entrepreneur like the English Department’s owner will need to have the appreciation for his customers and their proper milieu, but in the world Mutz describes, and that I believe we need to imagine ourselves working in, he will also need to help his customers understand how to behave in that milieu.

Case stories of community organizing often include a ring-leader, who models the organizing techniques and galvanizes his community towards a common goal. In Putnam and Feldstein’s collection, Better Together (2003), several such stories are recounted. Perhaps the most relevant to our study here is the profile of Kris Rondeau, who introduced a model of relational organizing, “the whole social thing” into the building of the Harvard University Clerical and Technical Worker’s Union (HUCTW). Starting with coffee dates and phone calls, Rondeau and her team organized HUCTW’s 85% female workforce through entirely different means from a traditional union, which usually relies on confrontational language and heavy campaigns of leaflets and literature. As a result, HUCTW was not just a union, but “ ‘someplace to go after work’” for the women members (p.175).

This story recalls the Progressive Era case study that Putnam analyzes in Bowling Alone (2000), during which time Americans sought to recreate “’that neighborly feeling that breeds the real democracy,’” as William Allen White called it (p.379). Founding fraternal clubs, reading groups, social clubs, and a number of other brand new social institutions, early 20th century Americans revived their community spirit and laid the foundation for the political reforms of Progressivism, which could be cast as policies that reflect the kind of commitment to shared well-being that is only possible in communities of high social capital. These cases highlight that social relationships need not be understood as “merely” social. Rather, social relationships are training grounds for deliberation, as Mutz explains, and cauldrons of preference-building that, through the alchemy of mutual trust, affection, casual socialization and shared values create the conditions for broader social and political change.

But social capital builders need not have those ends in mind, though like Rondeau, or Hakim, they might. They might simply be the hosts of a conversation, the proprietor of a meaningful local space, a focal point for information transmission on a street corner. The three individuals that are the focus of this study are something in between.

PORTRAITS

Our three figures today are social capital entrepreneurs in the Boston area. Only one of them, Mimi Graney, has a job description that specifically includes duties that we would call “community building”; Otto Gallotto and Paul Manzelli have more traditional “public character” roles, with a service based role in a naturally social environment, but Mimi’s “gal about town” (her words) role is another important model to consider in the framework of the social capital entrepreneur. To some extent, my field research revealed that dividing a social capital entrepreneur’s profile into “Who they are” and “What they do” is disingenuous; one of the defining characteristics of all three subjects is that they are what they do. By incorporating what they value about their community into their own identity, they can then nurture the shared identity of their community. A number of the traits and practices that I identify can be traced back to this essential fact. Still, it’s clearer to consider who they are (their social position, public persona, personal history) separately from what they do (what kind of strategies they use and impacts they have) for discussion purposes.

Who they are

First and foremost, all three subjects are established, long-term members of their community, with multigenerational ties to their neighborhood. These long-term ties are professional, ethnic, and residential, and serve and an indicator of authenticity, building a baseline for trust with new contacts. Deep community roots are one of the first things that all three subjects will share with new acquaintances, and something that they reinforce in their long-term relationships. Mimi has been in the trenches in Somerville for more than 20 years, watching (and being instrumental in) its transformation from “Slummerville” to the creative and culinary powerhouse that it is today; Paul previously worked at several major Boston bars, after having grown up just a stone’s throw from Bergamot and working his first job at 15 at Out of Town News, the iconic Harvard Square news seller; Otto has had his stall in the same spot for over 20 years. This personal legacy is often conflated with family legacy; Otto Gallotto’s clients will reminisce about when his father ran his stall. He will also assert his family’s and other vendors’ multigenerational legacy of vending at Haymarket, just as Paul explains that “his father and his father’s father before him” were bartenders. Bergamot’s promotional materials even highlight Paul’s deep local roots, to emphasize the restaurant’s mission of neighborhoodliness. “Born and raised in Harvard Square,” it reads, “Paul Manzelli knew the ins and outs of every street in Cambridge. His great-great-grandpa lived next to Longfellow Park on Mt. Auburn Street, and Paul grew up in that historic home. Flash forward twenty-something years and Paul is making some neighborhood history of his own.” Moreover, Otto frequently asserts his Italian identity, as Mimi subtly describes her Irish heritage (and time living abroad in Ireland) and Paul’s fondness for serving a splash of after-dinner bitters might go back to his great-grandfather, who emigrated from Abruzzo. One can imagine that in another city, social capital entrepreneurs would as proudly recall their family’s German or Lithuanian heritage as my subjects claim their Irish and Italian identities.

Implicit in these claims to symbolic ethnic identity and personal legacy is also an assertion that they are “salt of the earth,” with a working class pedigree. Paul even exaggerated his claim, telling me that he is good at his job because he is a “high school graduate with no computer skills,” but later leaning in and telling me that in fact he has a degree in dining and hospitality management from Newbury College. This is particularly interesting because Bergamot, with over $20 entrees, high-end wines, and a location just moments walking from Harvard Square, is not a context where you would expect Paul felt the need to emphasize humble origins in order to better relate to his clientele. By contrast, Mimi has a master’s degree, but her sensibilities and desire to maintain inclusivity and casualness in her environment reinforces her connection to her working-class neighborhood and its socio-economically diverse residents, recent immigrants and old-timers alike. Otto’s clipped sentences, pugnacious but loveable manner, and thick Boston accent is an essential part of the Haymarket context, which feels to many patrons like one of the last outposts of authentic Boston identity (Lempel 2012).

It may be that the emphasis on working class roots that I found is a function of the Boston area context, where in my observation many residents place a great deal of importance on a scrappy, blue-collar persona as a hallmark of authenticity; still, Sharon Zukin’s portrait of gentrification in New York (2011) for example, describes a similar affinity for blue-collar beginnings, so it might not be as context-specific a finding as one might imagine.

Education or not, all three subjects are extremely knowledgeable about their subject and work in a way that reflects a deep internalization of their work and a deep commitment to good service and powerful impacts. Otto is always visiting other markets on his travels, looking for best practices and takeaway lessons; Paul tirelessly searches for new drinks and ingredients, learning not only about their characteristics but their histories, their terroir, their production methods and what traditional spirits they might replace. In fact, Paul’s philosophy about his work centers around this idea of good service, which he defines as strong product knowledge, and the ability to communicate with guests, and an “obligation to go above and beyond, and provide individual attention.” Otto could write you a book about strawberries, consumer patterns, stall display, preservation techniques for different vegetables; Mimi is tirelessly inspired by other neighborhoods in other cities and countries and their strategies for events, public space design, and economic development, in addition to deeply passionate about what she does. She is as much of an expert on local zoning and permitting than any planner I have met, and in interviews and meetings she explains the issues confronting her neighborhood, and the goals of her practice, with precision: “Key among those is authenticity, emphasizing participation, not necessarily a non-hierarchical structure but one that recognizes the value of everyone in the community and welcomes engagement, playfulness, appreciation of the history of this place while also embracing the ongoing change.” Otto, too, describes the meaning of Haymarket with the sensitivity of a public heritage scholar, and Paul is encyclopedic in his knowledge of American cocktail history.

With this knowledge comes the desire and skill to tutor and advise others: Otto encourages potential vendors at Haymarket to work in his stall before undertaking their own operation. “New people,” he says, “I recommend to them to work for someone, just to see, just to learn, understand what they’re getting into. THEN you go out and try to do it. I have a young vendor with me, his name is Jose, he’s been with me since he was 15, now he wants to start his own thing.” I observed Paul training a new bartender one evening, with the strength and sensitivity of an ideal tutor, subtly teasing and reprimanding mistakes, giving immediate feedback for good work, clearly correcting but letting his trainee always hold the reins and learn by doing, encouraging questions and reflection through their interaction (Roscoe and Chi 2003). I myself have been the recipient of Mimi’s mentorship; she has a way of disagreeing positively, offering alternatives that never tell you that you had it wrong, but that you might want to think about something else that she knows from experience would be better. These are skills associated with the cognitive characteristics of deep, or expert knowledge (Bereiter and Scardalia 1993).

One could argue that possession of deep knowledge is merely an indicator of high performance in any activity, not necessarily a hallmark of social capital entrepreneurship per se. This is true, in that both successful social capital entrepreneurs and successful professionals in other fields need deep knowledge. However, the example of the Old Head suggests that deep knowledge is an important component specifically for building the kind of trust and authority that is essential for becoming a public figure: an Old Head is informed about the history and status of his race and community for the purpose of informing his neighbors and for informing his own practice and convictions, always learning more and reinforcing his mastery of his work. Like Hakim, Mimi, Otto and Paul are, in a sense a new kind of Old Head, with longevity and expertise, and a talent for mentorship. Moreover, one challenge of possessing deep knowledge – the challenge faced by a university professor, for instance – is that deep knowledge often produces a fundamentally different cognitive framework from beginner knowledge, such that it is often difficult for experts to communicate with beginners. These SKEs have found ways to communicate across that divide.

Their deep knowledge is reinforced by the fact that all three “live their work,” as described before. Otto works a six day week, as he describes it, from negotiating for good prices with wholesalers on Monday to breaking down the market on Saturday; Mimi keeps a personal blog that is a reflection on her decades of work in community building, showing that she’s thinking about her craft and practices as a part of her identity. When I asked her what she sees as her role in the community (as opposed to her job description), Mimi responded: “I guess I don't - for better or worse - make much of a differentiation.  One thread that carries on among all my work in Somerville -- employed or not -- is a set of values I bring.” Paul takes days off to visit other bars and learn about what’s new. Again, one might argue that this is more about that fact that they are good at their jobs, and not necessarily about their being social capital entrepreneurs. But I don’t think it’s that simple: many people who are good at their jobs take off that hat when they leave the office, so that they can return home or practice a hobby. This is about identity: the SKE has to have the community as part of their identity, which in turn enables them to build the identity of the community.

A final commonality, perhaps unexpected in the context of this discussion of identity and deep knowledge, is the fact that in spite of their expertise, there is a lightness to their practice and personas. Even though Paul had already explained that his restaurant was built on the idea of becoming a neighborhood place, he said to me “I don’t think I do anything important. It’s just fun.” Mimi, too, has built the community of Union Square in part around a series of rather ridiculous public events and parties, such as the Marshmallow Fluff festival, which in 2011 (with a “Brady Bunch” theme) featured the guest band performers Booty Vortex, a karaoke competition, and a competition for the crowning of the Pharaoh of Fluff, with Mimi in attendance wearing a Jan Brady wig. Other silly public events that Mimi hosts and participates in with gusto include the Union Square Rock Paper Scissors competition. She describes the ideas that drive her work as “Love.  Time.  Legacy. Change. Wonder.  Play. Reflection. Story telling.” Otto builds his rapport over teasing and joking; media portraits of him emphasize his big smile and wholehearted laugh. Paul’s bar doesn’t spare the teasing either. This, I think, is actually the essential bridge between being good at what they do and using what they do to build community: they are seeking common ground, building comfort in relationships, encouraging friendship and interaction with their humility and good nature, while at the same time inspiring confidence and trust in themselves by showing their knowledge.

One experience I had at Paul’s bar exemplifies the power of combining a casual demeanor with deep knowledge. A middle aged man, small, neat, dressed in a well tailored suit and small wire-rim glasses, came to the bar as he waited for a large party to arrive. He was the first person I had seen use a smartphone intensively at the bar, as if to avoid conversation. He asked Paul for a Manhattan, up, with a Canadian whiskey that Paul informed him they didn’t have. The man was flustered, and a bit rude as he asked what they did have and was concerned that they would not have anything appropriate. Paul was polite but firm as he suggested an alternate whiskey, describing its characteristics and why he believed it would be a good substitute (Canadian whiskeys often have some rye in them, he explained, so he suggested a light American rye; his favorite was Old Overholt). When the man reminded him to add bitters to the Manhattan, Paul responded, “That’s part of a Manhattan.” “You’d be surprised,” the man said. “Well, welcome to a real restaurant.” His tone was professionally taken aback, defending his expertise -- the man had just told him how to do his job, after all -- but easy and jocular. And the Manhattan he made, I can only imagine, was spectacular, because after a couple of sips the man had joined in our conversation, complimented Paul as being a sophisticated cocktail expert, and then when his friends arrived, he told them all that Paul was a “good one, the real deal,” remarking multiple times about Paul’s skill at his craft. Paul had won him over.

What they Do

Part of “living their work” is the fact that these social capital entrepreneurs become models for the ethics and attributes of their community. In their public personas, open bearing, natural communication skills and ability to host and stimulate a conversation -- whether in the moment or over time -- the SKEs provide examples for how to build relationships, find commonality, and also to identify with the preferences and character of the community. Part of this process is the fact that they are constantly connecting people to each other. The first day I met Otto, I watched him snap his cell phone open and call someone in the middle of a conversation, to put people in touch with each other or ask a question that might help him build a relationship between two people. A friend and her daughter came to the stand, for example, and when Otto learned that the daughter attended the same college as his daughter, he immediately called his daughter so that the two could talk to each other right away. Another day, as I interviewed him, a couple walked past. Otto interrupted our conversation to greet them with a yell and a wave, “Hey! How are you!” The man introduced his wife. “Otto Gallotto [shakes the woman’s hand],” Otto says, “Oh, I’ve met you before!” Like Paul, who makes a point of saying hello and “nice to see you again” and to ask guests to “remind him of your name” even if a guest only been to the bar once, Otto at his produce stall wants to assure them that he is paying attention to them.

Mimi is also always connecting people to each other, making connections; she seems to keep a mental rolodex, and most conversations conclude with the suggestion of at least one person to contact or the promise of at least one introduction based on personal or professional interests. Perhaps her greatest role therefore is as a connector between other connectors, building a community of community builders around the Boston area, in addition to fostering connections between citizens and business owners in her own neighborhood. “There's lots of lots of people in this tribe,” she says.

Paul and Mimi, like the deliberative guide that Mutz envisions, know that their job is as much to listen and ask questions as to share their own wisdom, in spite of the amount of it that they possess. It is clear from their manner -- Mimi smiles broadly and laughs easily, Paul leans in over his bar for a conversation -- that they are sensitive to making whomever they are talking to feel comfortable and supported. It’s about “falling in love with a group of people, with a place,” she says. “It's about really deeply listening. I suspect there's a common thread of self sacrifice there.” Otto and Paul display the same affection for their community that Mimi articulates; Paul describes having dinner at one of the neighborhood restaurants almost twenty years ago, on his eighteenth birthday, with his mother and sister. Otto, too, speaks fondly and nostalgically about his love for the market: “Everyone does the same thing every week, he says, you'll see the same people and you know them. That would be a shame if that goes away.” In this way, all three model the components of good conversation and set a tone of investment and passion about their community. Otto, very much of his environment, has a less relational approach; he is as loud and as bumptious as the other vendors, modeling the behavior of that community. However, when he describes his role as president of the Haymarket vendor association, I saw something else: he expressed concern that his members be informed, and that decisions for the association are agreed upon by all. “I’m not a dictator,” he told me. His deliberative role is not between himself and the client, in other words, but between his colleagues at the market; he takes seriously his commitment to speaking for them and doesn’t want anyone left out.

In Otto’s commitment to engaging the members of his association in shared decision making, we can see another important function of the social capital entrepreneur: to gather and disseminate information about the neighborhood and wider issues. I like to think of the SKE as the axle around which all of the spokes of the wheel of the neighborhood turn. Otto not only makes sure to communicate important development issues to his association members, he also holds forth about politics local and national, economic development (not to mention fruits and vegetables) with other vendors, friends, frequent buyers, and whomever else wishes to join. One Friday afternoon, a local government official stopped by the stall to shoot the breeze. Otto and I caught him up on our conversation, which was about a scandal that had recently been uncovered: the executive director of the nonprofit that manages one of Boston’s parks had been found to be collecting an extremely high, it was thought, salary. Otto expressed admiration of a local citizen journalist who had been covering this issue for the neighborhood, which Otto had been following (and whom he of course knew). The official, however, informed us that that journalist had in fact gotten some of his information wrong, explaining the nuances of local public space financing like he was commenting on the Red Sox. This anecdote describes a circumstance in which Otto’s stall became a third place, where conversation is welcome and boisterous, and epitomizing “downward” socializing where individuals of all social and political standings are equalized through the rules of friendliness and conversation.

Perhaps the most important thing that social capital entrepreneurs do, though, is create a sense of belonging and shared identity for their community members; that is, bonding capital. Through this capital, communities in theory should be able to more easily mobilize political power, improve their economic circumstances, and improve safety and quality of life together. I have identified three sources of this shared identity, using an example from each subject, respectively.

. shared experiences -- Mimi’s quirky public events (and an extremely well-attended Saturday farmer’s market) and work in business development have contributed to the neighborhood’s scrappy, all-in-this-together ethos. Numerous local business owners have remarked to me that they wanted to locate in Union Square in part because of the “vibe” of the place, with artists, immigrants, tech startups, and food businesses collaborating and learning from one another. In the same breath, they will often mention Mimi and her dynamic leadership. This is especially important because the neighborhood is tackling difficult issues of diversity and gentrification. She identifies her mission as “Fostering my community as a place of welcome, kindness, beauty, appreciation.”

. preferential treatment for insiders -- during most of the market day, long-time shoppers and friends access Otto’s stall from the rear (Lempel 2012). This creates a sense of intimacy and “in the know-ness.” More broadly, regular Haymarket shoppers describe a kind of pride for having learned the market’s unspoken rules, which they have all internalized through experience, much like the patrons of a third place. One shopper said in an online review that “It’s a great way to feel connected to the community while saving serious cash on your weekly produce and meat needs.” However, from this pride and set of shared norms also comes a desire to defend this turf, sometimes even mocking and devaluing the opinions of those who do not understand the market, reflecting the downside of building strong bonding capital.

. frequent contact and sense of intimacy -- Paul’s bar is filled, on a weeknight, with regulars. “Right on time!” he announced as one couple sat down; they told me later that they eat at Bergamot once a week. “You’re early today,” he told another woman, who I later learned works at the Wine and Cheese Cask, one of the anchor businesses in the neighborhood. Another couple recounted a story that began “My proudest accomplishment at your bar…” and I overheard a regular explaining the dishes on the menu to his guest at the end of a long day -- of her moving into the neighborhood. He has a way of having conversations with individual guests that also feel public, inviting the group to participate in a discussion about a certain wine, or the score of the Bruins game. As one of the Chowhounders who recommended Paul for my study said, “Paul … has an incredible gift for making guest, especially regulars, feel entertained and at home. Great once the diners have left so he has more time to pay attention to the bar patrons. He's great for getting people to talk at the bar.”

Regulars are essential, according to Oldenburg, but in his description, regulars are regulars because of the other regulars. My observation at Bergamot suggests that regulars are regulars because of Paul, and probably the food, though as a result of being regulars they often also meet each other -- I observed several introductions, I myself had conversations with numerous neighbors, and I heard at least one story of late nights of co-confessions between patrons. One couple told Paul about another evening that they had spent, talking for long hours with another regular about his wife. “Ex-wife,” Paul corrected. “He can get going on that.”

CONCLUSION AND FURTHER RESEARCH

The findings from my three case studies reveal that the contemporary social capital entrepreneur shares many characteristics with the old heads and public characters described by previous scholars. However, all three are more actively in control of the process of building their community than those archetypes, who are a part of a community milieu, a “street culture” that already exists. Whereas the social capital entrepreneurs I have studied are the axle at the center of a community wheel, a public character was an important gear in a complex machine.

I hope that this study, in a small way, might contribute to a better understand what it takes to be a social capital entrepreneur. For though these individuals are self-nominated, they also have been nurtured by a legacy of others like them, both friends and family, who have supported them and connected them to resources. As one of Otto’s old-timer shoppers told me, “he had a good father.” Individuals with the capacity and passion to become SKEs must be recognized and nurtured. Mimi told me that she sometimes feels like the “smallness” of what she does, the emphasis on fun and everyday experience, means that she is often looked over. She says that the best way to support her and others like her is to provide opportunities for professional development and shared reflection.

Lately I've been feeling rather down that the smaller scale work that I do isn't recognized as worthy so I want to say recognition but that's not really it -- just to be seen I suppose it is really.  It drives me crazy when money and resources and connections go to those who tell their story better (more flash, more confidence, more razzle dazzle) -- I recognize that I and folks like me need to do a better job of telling our own stories but it's challenging to put down the urgency of the everyday and to set aside resources this way.  

The literature tells us that it’s important that social capital entrepreneurs work on the “unimportant” stuff: casual conversation, informal, downward socializing, shooting the breeze, often provide foundations for deeper engagement, as in the case of Progressive Era book clubs, or the HUCTW’s get-togethers over tea.

Perhaps Mimi’s anxiety highlights the difference between her work and Otto and Paul’s: because she is not a public character, with an occupation in commerce that provides the opportunity to become a connector and information clearinghouse, she needs to derive legitimacy from something other than a vending practice or successful restaurant, and the establishment that traditionally facilitates social change is more focused on outcomes and service provision than on the nebulous, day-to-day manifestation of shared spirit and community relationships. Perhaps the HUCTW analogy is particularly apt, as Rondeau also faced skepticism from establishment Union leaders, who found her approach too soft. This is an important difference that deserves further study: what are the sources of legitimacy for social capital entrepreneurs working in different public capacities? Can we even consider them to be the same thing? I began this study thinking that I was studying three very different types of SKEs, since on the surface Bergamot restaurant and a Haymarket stall seem to have very little in common; are there any other types of SKEs, beyond nonprofit community builders and hosts of “third places,” that should be added to a taxonomy of social capital entrepreneurs?

Other areas of study are also suggested by this research. For example, how do you measure the impact of a social capital entrepreneur? Is the social capital the goal, or is another community outcome? Also mentioned here is the need for more qualitative study from the point of view of community members: what are their opinions of the SKE’s practice, and why do they choose to patronize their establishment, or build connections with others around them? Is the SKE necessary at all? Is it sufficient, or do other conditions need to be in place for an SKE to be successful, such as the other “anchor restaurants” in Paul’s neighborhood, or the long social tradition of the Haymarket in Boston? Mimi also brought up a concept, also revealed in my research that I think is ripe for study: the role of legacy, both personal and collective, in the formation of social capital. All three subjects talked about heritage one way or the other; is this just something that is important to them, or is it also important to the members of the community they serve? What is it about social capital entrepreneurship that inspires this need for a link to the past? Or, perhaps this is a Boston-specific phenomenon, and studies in other cities would show that all SKEs share links to, say, ecology. Suffice to say, the tribe of social capital entrepreneurs must be understood, and encouraged to be, diverse and self-directed. No research should be considered definitive, nor can any practices really be considered “best.” It’s just who they are.

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APPENDIX: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

asked of all three subjects

How would you describe your role in your community (as opposed to your job)?

What matters to you about this role?

What are some of the strategies that you use to be good at this role?

What are the things that you think about as you participate in your community?

What about your personality makes you suited to this role?

How could you be supported?

Do you see other folks who are serving a similar role, either in your community or in others? Who are they, and what do they do?