Resource Transformation Through Capitalization Processes in Community Economic Development
Abstract
This dissertation presents a critical institutionalist theory of resource
transformation through capitalization processes in the context of community economic
development. The arguments are presented through three articles. The first chapter is
introductory and provides a synthesis of the main arguments in the articles that follow.
The first article (Chapter II) provides a brief conceptual history of the term
‘capital’ and continues by articulating a capital as process. The Community Capitals
Framework provides several insights that shape the conception of resources and their use
in the context of community economic development. A metatheoretic framework is
developed in which emergent resource capitalization processes are seen as a social
relation through which agents, constrained and enabled by both resource structures and
cultural systems, pursue their development agendas by utilizing those resources they have
access to in order to transform them into resources they desire.
The second article (Chapter III) seeks to identify a set of processional properties
associated with capitalization processes. The eight properties are identified as:
transformation capacity, temporality, cultural embeddedness, expected future yield,
identifiability, flexibility, reliability, and variability/conditionality. This set of properties
serve as a vocabulary by which diverse capitalization processes are analyzed and
employed. Establishing a clear distinction between a community’s resources and the
processes involved in capitalizing them requires non-conflationary properties associated
with each.
The final article (Chapter IV) serves as an application of the framework
developed in the first two articles by developing a theory of resource transformation
through capitalization processes in community development. This theory is evaluated by
conducting a case study of the establishment of the Ithaca HOURS initiative in Ithaca,
NY, during the early 1990s. This community-led initiative established a community
currency, Ithaca HOURS, in order to stimulate local economic activity.
Table of Contents
Introduction -- The emergence of community capitals -- The processional properties of capitalization -- Resource transformation through capitalization: an Ithaca HOURS case study -- Appendix A. Ithaca HOURS Transactions Table -- Appendix B. Five Months in the Life of an HOUR
Degree
Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)