Episode #31: Bringing social capital and social infrastructure measurement to Australia

Renae Hanvin

In this episode, I’m welcoming back Professor Daniel Aldridge. He’s the Director of the Resilience and Security Studies Program at Northeastern University in the USA. He’s also a volunteer on the Resilient Ready Advisory Group and a project delivery partner with us. And we are talking about bringing social capital and social infrastructure measurement to Australia. So a little bit about Daniel. Daniel p Alridge was born in upstate New York and spent his childhood and much of his adult life traveling and abroad. While living in Tokyo, Japan, he began to wonder how Japan, the only country to suffer the effects of an atomic weaponry, could have built up in such an advanced nuclear power program. He wrote up his observations in the book Site Fights published by Cornell University Press in 2005. He and his family had their home car and all of their material possessions in New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

And he began studying what makes communities and neighborhoods more resilient. He published Building Resilience to share these insights on the role of friends, neighbors, and social cohesion after a crisis, after Japan was hit by the devastating triple disasters of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. In March, 2011, Daniel wrote Black Wave about the factors that helped people and communities bounce back. He also has a new book coming up soon. So I’d like to start with where we met. I had heard a lot about Professor Aldrich or Daniel from a previous visit he made to Australia a number of years ago, and I was really intrigued to hear more about this so-called Social Capital concept. It wasn’t until I was kindly invited to a small group conversation where Daniel was the guest speaker in Sydney quite a few years back that I saw and heard firsthand how important his research and focus on so-called Social Ties. Given Resilient Ready is a hundred percent stakeholder led it was, well on my part anyway, a case of people resilience love at first sight. I’m so excited to have Daniel back for another episode to share his focus on social capital being bonding, bridging and linking ties, but also on his other focus of social infrastructure being the places where people connect. I’m really honored to say Daniel has been a volunteer on our Resilient Ready Advisory Committee for over four years, and is a delivery partner on our projects, including the award-winning Kangaroo Island Business Climate Roadmap and Blue Mountains Business Resilience Roadmap. Right now as re-record this podcast, we are collaborating on a South Australian Snapshot project. This is the first step in bringing Daniel’s work to Australia. Daniel, welcome back for another podcast.

Daniel Aldrich

Thanks for having me.

Renae Hanvin

So, for our listeners who aren’t across your work, and I don’t know that there are many in Australia, but

1. Can you explain what is social capital and what is social infrastructure?

Daniel Aldrich

Yeah, social capital involves the bonds that tie us together. So all of us hopefully have family, we have friends, we have work colleagues, maybe we have hobbies as well, maybe bocce ball, the tank. People like to go out when it’s not too hot and, and get some swimming on. So we have ties in different ways and social capital tries to understand those in terms of what we call bonding, bridging and linking ties. Bonding social capital connects people who are similar. The fancy word is homogenous. So homogenous social ties. Heterogeneous ties are the ones we capture with bridging social capital. That’s the friends you make at a barbecue outside or when you meet your new neighbors for the first time, maybe through work or through our a kid’s school. And then find linking social capital are the vertical connections we have to decision makers, your mayor, your governor or someone in power. And those social ties, where do we build them? Right? Where do they come from? So the places and spaces in our societies, libraries, parks, pubs, maybe churches and synagogues and mosques, those are what we call social infrastructure. Those are the places that build the social fabric that ties us together. And both of those are really important. Both social capital, the ties that we have and social infrastructure where we build them are important. Because those really impact our daily lives and also our lives when something bad happens,

Renae Hanvin

As you know, I am such a fan about people connections and places that people connect, which is why I’m so grateful to be doing work with you. And back in 2022, you worked with us at Resilient Ready, although we were Corporate to Community, then on two projects focused on building business community resilience. And that’s where I think you really saw firsthand my passion for the role that community organizations or non-for-profit businesses and also social businesses can play in building connections in communities and also being places where people can connect. And if we focus on the Kangaroo Island Business Climate Roadmap project that I worked on over our 15 months, and we won an award for, which was very exciting, and you came with me to the island. I know who first one we submitted actually, and you came with me to the island and met some amazing people who talked about their experiences. And I guess you, you brought the lens of social capital and social infrastructure to the conversations and to the project. So firstly, Fiona Jago, who’s the former owner of the western KI Western Kangaroo Island Caravan Park.

2. Can you share what did you learn from Fiona Jago from the Western KI Caravan Park?

Daniel Aldrich

Yeah, Fiona’s pretty amazing. So I know often times we talk about heroes, especially people we think in uniform, right? Police officers and firefighters. But here was someone who, because she’s a nice person and she had the ties and she needed to have them, was able to save hundreds of people’s lives, right? So Fiona was there during those really horrible fires on Kangaroo Island, and she kept asking the police every day, what should I do? I have lots of people staying over here, right? Some of them are less mobile, some of them are more mobile. Some of them are foreign tourists who don’t speak English so well, should we evacuate now? Should we wait? And the police kept telling her, we can’t tell you what to do. So at some point, Fiona took it on her own, on her own initiative, her own time to call enough other parks and places around the area to get everyone out of there before the fires arrived.

Daniel Aldrich

So because of her, because of the work that she did, the care that she has in the trust, people had in her, people listened to her when she told them to go, they did. And she asked for people to help, a place to find for them other people found a place for them. So it’s a great example, right? Here’s a person who has built these bridging ties to people from around the world: Chinese tourists, people from Adelaide, people visiting from New Zealand, people like me from America. And she used the ties that she had to activate and save lives during that shock. And her physical space, the caravan park itself was a great place for people to meet, right? So now it’s, for example, got workers who come through there. You know, back then it might have been more tourists who were coming through. But again, her spot itself, the place where people sat down, they have a barbecue, they see the koalas and the trees, those are places and spaces where people built ties. So she really embodies this idea that during a disaster, it’s more than just having a government, for example, that’s involved or having something like insurance. Neither of those would’ve been helpful to you, even if you had, you know, a government, whatever, some kind of plan or an insurance plan that wasn’t what saved your life. What saved your life was someone like Fiona. So it’s a really good example of someone who embodies social capital and social infrastructure.

Renae Hanvin

And I think, and just for those who don’t know, Fiona’s actually sold the caravan park and left Kangaroo Island. And she’s actually now working with Resilient Ready as a lived experience facilitator going out and talking about her experiences and, and what she did and, and what she has planned from a business perspective as well. But I think if you connect it into that, you know, bonding, bridging and linking ties. So her, to me, her bonding ties is a family run caravan park, and there’s local people there that are very, I guess they live the same way as you mentioned, her bridging ties are, you know, into the customers and the suppliers that can’t come and drop off things and the customers that she’s literally saving the lives of. And then the link ties are from my understanding her into the emergency services and the government. So those people in, you know, power or roles of authority. And I think it’s a really great example whereby there’s strength in Fiona building strong linking tie connections. But there is absolute necessity from government and emergency services building connections back into, and I’m not saying it’s down, but back into, people like Fiona who for the western part of the Kangaroo Island, you know, there’s not many people there, so they need to know who Fiona is and have really good connections with her.

Daniel Aldrich

Exactly. And again, think about the people staying with her, right? Where they couldn’t get information from the police, they got work and action from her. So again, someone who, that they trusted, they trusted what the information that she gave them and again, able to save all the lives of everyone in the caravan, get them to someplace safe in time. So it’s not often you can point to someone and say, you know, this person’s a lifesaver, but with Fiona we can.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, a hundred percent. And then another great couple that we met on KI was Peter and Lisa, and they’re from Kangaroo Island Coffee Roasters, and they had a little caravan that served coffee that they take around the island. And what did you learn from them?

3. Can you share what did you learn from Peter and Lisa from Kangaroo Island Coffee Roasters?

Daniel Aldrich

Yeah, really interesting story. So again, we often think about businesses as as sort of not interesting. You know, everyone’s got a business, what’s the big deal? But oftentimes these business owners are the key in bridging between different groups. I remember they told me a story that, less than a week after the fire, they had an older farmer, inside the store there, and they had a really nice business where people from outside the store could donate money. And people who came in for food, which was in short supply and coffee, probably also short supply, could get that for free local local residents who’d been through a lot. So that was really nice. But they noticed, he was looking down, they asked him what’s going on? He turned out he had burned his hands actually during the fire and really needed to get stuff going on the farm.

Daniel Aldrich

He had a lot of water needed to irrigate the crops with, but he himself couldn’t turn the fields, spigot back on. So they knew because they’d been doing this coffee serving for several days, a whole troop of Australian soldiers who were in town to help out. And, and they said to him, is it okay if we bring in some, some big guns, so to speak, to help out? And thanks to them being this literal bridge between a local farmer who couldn’t get his work done and these soldiers looking for a job to do, they had the water flowing that farm really quickly and, and made it really possible to get everything done. So again, a great example. We often don’t think about the importance of local businesses, local entrepreneurs, you know, these are individuals who again, get the trust for their customers and hear what’s going on in the community. Again, the soldiers had no idea what needs were in the community, and even local residents didn’t know who was even there to help them. They’re too busy focusing on their own problems. So this is another good example where that physical shop, the physical coffee shop, whether it’s mobile or or sitting in place, was a site of social infrastructure. We built these ties and again, really helping out someone in need, who knows what would’ve happened to his livelihood, right? If a whole season had gone by without getting the crops being watered.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I’ve heard you share that story so many times, and I guess goop guess I get goosebumps, every time as well just because of the difference that connections do and can make. So you and I are now collaborating on a very exciting project in South Australia where we’re developing a snapshot report on what social capital and social infrastructure is, and what it could be for the state. Part of the project is that me and my Resilient Ready team are doing a desktop review at the moment of existing policies and programs across government and non-government organizations to look at social capital, outputs, I guess, and outcomes and and measurements, et cetera. So what do you think it is now? You haven’t seen any of this because we’re, we are doing the hard work for you and then sharing with you our findings.

4. What do you think it is we are finding across government and non-government research at the moment?

Daniel Aldrich

Yeah, I mean, really important to think about South Australia’s policies here and the way that they fit more broadly into things like SAFECOM. So I had the chance a few different times to speak to colleagues from a variety of these emergency organizations working there locally. And I think, you know, recognizing what our work is doing, Resilient Ready putting social ties at the front of what we’re doing is a critical element. You know, I also see the recognition of volunteerism and people from the community themselves getting involved. You know, our motto, your motto has always been doing disasters differently. And I think, you know, part of that start is recognizing true recovery only begins from the bottom up. No matter how good in intentioned government plans are, they’re a government plan, meaning they’re not being built or run or even sometimes consulting with local people.

Daniel Aldrich

So when you have volunteers and you have residents getting involved, that’s it. That’s the base of that. And then you have of course, the local first responders. You have fire police, all the other services as well. And those ideally are from the community and connected to the community. So this is not just, you know, bringing in a random person who’s gonna parachute down right, and do some work and walk out again. But really important critical elements of the process. So that’s one aspect of this is, is these, the degree to which these organizations themselves are connected to the work that they do. I also think it’s important that we, that we step back from that, right? I think realizing many organizations have been to understand the, the role of social capital and a language we usually hear from first responders from disaster managers.

Daniel Aldrich

Oftentimes the work is about let’s say infrastructure or technology, the newest app, for example, I heard a lot talk from organizations and I was there about, you know, getting people to install more apps. I think I asked someone if they installed every app being developed across Australia, how many would there be? And they told me more than 11 different disaster apps. That’s a lot of things on your phone to be scrolling through right as there’s a fire or a flood or something bad is happening. So I think the more we recognize it, technology has a role of course in our lives. It, it has to. Um, but at the same time, what really is gonna build up both our interested in building the community itself, but also our, our ability to do that comes from our ties in real life from people that we know may be overlaid with digital technologies as well.

Daniel Aldrich

So maybe we have a WhatsApp group or a Facebook group or whatever. But knowing your neighbors, knowing other businesses nearby, that has to be at the base of a real process. I think part of the work that we’re doing is really putting that front and center, recognizing the social capital has to be there. And finally I think, you know, that party by this is digital connections. So many people nowadays really are on their phones. They are on platforms, whether it’s whatever we have nowadays, Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and so forth. And that’s really has to be a recognized part of what we do, that we have to see that people are building both in real life IRL as my kids would say, but also in digital spaces. We build these kind of connections. So I think that’s, those are all critical elements of the kind of work that’s serious.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, a hundred percent. And you’re so right. So just tapping back into SAFECOM, so, Miriam Lumb from SAFECOM, I think he’s just an absolute true thought leader in the resilience space and the stronger together strategy, which I know is coming up for review this year. One of the four quadrants, like really front and center from, you know, five, six years ago is community connections and networks. So even back before Professor Daniel Aldrich was a thing, in Australia, you know, she recognized, I guess in that systemic, systemic component of building resilience that you have to have connected and networked communities, which is why I’m really excited to be, you know, collaborating with South Australia on this project. And I also think you mentioned about digital and we had a forum or an online session just recently and, and digital connections was asked, and I know SA Costs or the South Australian Costs did a report on digital connections last year that we are also really excited to be including in our desktop research as well as all the intel and the great programs and policies and procedures that the emergency services have.

Renae Hanvin

So CFS and MFS and SES, et cetera. And, you know, SA poll, et cetera, because there are some great initiatives around community connectedness. And I very much see, I guess, you know, the little CFS out in rural countries, you know, the fire station, you know, that is a hub of connection. So that is a social infrastructure place that’s really important for some of those regional communities as well.

Daniel Aldrich

Yes, exactly.

Renae Hanvin

So given we are doing a bit of research into looking at policies and program development and delivery relevant to social capital and social infrastructure, the big gap to me is that there is, and in Australia there is no definition of what it is, and there’s no measurement of what it does. So that we can then identify, well, what else can we do? Or how can we strengthen it or expand it?

5. So what’s the key difference in doing things that connect people ie we are doing community connection programs and actually measuring it?

Daniel Aldrich

Yeah. So this is a real challenge I think for many of us in the field, which is even if you talk to someone about social capital and they say, yeah, that’s a great idea. You say, okay, great. So you know, what is your organization, local government, whatever doing to actually map that and then build it. So many people are doing things to some degree that our building detections or even again having a barbecue outside helping your neighbors out when it’s too hot to carry the groceries in, right? Those are great examples of things we do all the time. Mundane activities that build ties going to the library with your kids going outside with your dog. But the challenge is systematically measuring what’s going on. So, you know, I remember my time in Australia, I asked every state I went to, which was a few, okay, so tell me about the way that you’re capturing social capital here.

Daniel Aldrich

And they might say, well, we’re not, we’re not really capturing it ourselves. Or we had this survey we did about a decade ago, or we have a pretty good idea ’cause we’ve talked to some local people. So one thing was even inside the states themselves, there wasn’t a lot of agreement on what was social capital, how was it measured? And of course, we wanna know more than just our own state ’cause we wanna know. So, okay, are there certain states doing it well, certain states doing it better. If I’m measuring social capital using one measurement and you’re in some other place and, you know, using it completely different measurement, we can’t even talk about that on the same page. So, you know, part of the, the challenges that I see still across Australia is that one, very few states have formalized or embedded a regular measurement of social capital into what they do.

And then the challenge then is even if they have done that, which I have not seen, then getting everyone to agree across the states, right, to a broader plan. Like we all can agree, how do we measure income, right? Or maybe something like happiness, right? So even these regulatory vague ideas, right? We can capture them. So here as well, we should be able to sit down right, as people who agree that this matters and figure out how to do it. So one, one thing is starting with an agreement. What are the reasonable ways to capture social capital and social infrastructure, at maybe a local level, then a state level, and then build up a national framework. I think for me that would be a critical element, right? In building something that makes sense across the state.

Renae Hanvin

Well, stay tuned because obviously we have hopeful fingers crossed, other funding mechanisms because the snapshot project in South Australia is that first step them as a thought leader state in, you know, looking at, I guess a bit more deeply social capital and social infrastructure with our intent is absolutely to create a national definition and national measurement metrics that are relevant to every state across Australia and inclusive of every state and territory across Australia, but measured in a collective approach so that we’re not doing one version here and one version there. So that’s in the pipeline now. You are actually gonna be back in Australia in May, 2024 to run a forum in Adelaide and an online one for us, for this South Australian snapshot. And the forums really, we are gonna present the findings from our desktop research, and then I’m doing a load of stakeholder interviews this month. And then we are gonna co-design, so the forum’s kind of an interactive one. We’re gonna co-design with the participants and really create a definition for what social capital and social infrastructure could be and should be for South Australia and then the wider Australian as we move the concept nationally. Like where do you think this snapshot project could go? So if we’re starting by just sort of, you know, what could we call it? And then, you know, what could we measure? Like where would, where’s it gonna go?

Daniel Aldrich

Yeah, I mean my, my ideal plan would be in the same way that, you know, a good fire department or a good police department really knows their community quite well, knows, for example, fire risks, let’s call them hotspots. So an ideal map, both at the micro level, at the state level, at the national level, would we have, let’s call them cold spots of social capital and social infrastructure. We know from oodles of research now for more than two decades, that the community’s most vulnerable during disasters are those ones that are not well connected internally or externally. That is to save horizontally. I don’t know, my neighbors, maybe I don’t trust them so much, I don’t leave my house and vertically I don’t really trust the government, I don’t get involved so much, right? Those are the communities with the fewest access to resources, new ideas, collective action, all the things that matter during a shock.

Daniel Aldrich

So the ideal place, I mean I’d love to see this happening soon, would be when first responders think about, okay, we know there’s a fire coming, there’s a typhoon coming, there’s a flood coming, here are the areas that we know thanks to this kind of mapping that are the most isolated, the most disconnected, the least likely to have someone to turn to. This is work that Eric Kleinberg did qualitatively for a study of a heat wave back in Chicago where several hundred people died. It wasn’t just being vulnerable. That really doesn’t make you so in danger. It was being vulnerable and alone, those two things together. So being elderly and alone, for example, being a newcomer and alone. So again, you might have, if you have great connections, you’re probably in great shape, right? I know my parents are very, very, they’re a lot older than me, but very actively in your community.

Daniel Aldrich

They have a lot of good neighbor connections, so I’m not worried about them. It’s the kind of people who say things like, I wish I knew more people. I wish I had friends nearby. I don’t know anyone on my block. Those who can be worried about. And ideally what this map can give us and give first responders and everyone else is even for a neighborhood to know, here are the areas we need to be working out for. Here are the people who need more help. Here are the communities that we need to be investing in that that’d be the ideal. If we can’t do that level, which is sort of the getting ready stuff, at least we should be able to know, here are the warning signs we can all be looking for in communities, right? Here are the things that we can capture with publicly available data.

Daniel Aldrich

Here are the things that we can publish a map. You know, these are the blocks that we think have the fewest people connecting to each other or trusting each other so that people in the neighborhood can know, you know, we might wanna do something, have that barbecue, have the outdoor event, call in Renae and the Resilient Ready people do something like that, right? Because again, this is not just a thing for governments to be working on, right? This is not just a government job. And that’s a really important thing to recognize here. This is a job for each one of us to do, each community to do, and you can’t do something unless you know what you have, right? If you think you’re doing really well, but the reality is you’re the only person on the block. Can anyone else that’s not social capital, that’s not.

Daniel Aldrich

And, and, and, and if you think the one place that you like is your nearby Starbucks or whatever, not not in Australia, sorry, that was a faux pa there, your nearest flat white provider there in your block, but that’s the only place that you go. And they’re only open in the mornings. Not, again, not a great sign of social infrastructure. So the more that we can do both at, at the government level, which of course matters, but also at the community level to give these tools to everybody so they can think about, yeah, okay, we are missing some ties. I don’t really know my neighbors as well as they should, or even comparison, right? Oh my gosh, I spent some time in that community in Adelaide, they’re really connected, but now my community here in Sydney, compared to them actually we don’t know so much.

Daniel Aldrich

So what are they doing there? And then maybe call them or get information from them and say, what are best practices going on in Adelaide or best practices someplace else that could inform what we do. So this mapping has to be the basis for what we do. It’s too often we do stuff without recognizing, you know, where where is our level of that resource. For example, if I wanna borrow from the bank, I better know how much money I have available to pay the mortgage, right? If I wanna get my kid educated, I should know what kind of maths do they know? So in all these other areas, we assume it’s normal to know where we’re holding these areas, social capital, social infrastructure, these critical elements. Most of us are just guessing.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And again, that’s why I’m so excited to be bringing it to Australia and obviously collaborating with you. And I think though you mentioned before that obviously it’s not just the role of government and it’s, you know, it’s everyone’s role in communities. And I really think, you know, my passion is obviously, you know, community organizations and social businesses, but I also think that the likes of corporates and in particular our critical infrastructure, so like water boards, telco providers, you know, power boards, our banks, all those corporate organizations that really are fundamental to I guess a community surviving and an individual surviving. I think they have a really big role as well. And when I think about, you know like water boards in Australia, like everyone has to have water, whether you’re a household or you’re a business, right? If you don’t have water, then you’re not gonna survive. So to me, those organizations, whilst yes, they’re providing an essential surface, they’re connecting into us and they know who’s in the houses and they’re sending us bills and they’re sending us information. So I think they also have a big role to play in being part of the holistic social capital and social infrastructure approach as well.

Daniel Aldrich

Exactly. And this is one of those moments, we talked a little bit before about businesses, right? And the role of organizations in the broader process, so here as well, right? This corporate utility is one that connects to almost everybody. We hope at least everyone’s on water infrastructure right now. So there’s a connection in place. There might be a radio communication in place, maybe water readers are coming by information about how to save water, right? So this is an organization, water providing that we know already has ties into the community, a critical infrastructure provider. So we wanna think about them them engaging with them having them think through the ways they connect to ties in businesses as well. We also wanna think about more broadly, just again, not just local businesses, but regional and national businesses as well. To what degree are their, their employees, their members tied into the communities where they work? So, you know, an ideal business isn’t that just providing a service, right? They’re also providing trust during a shocks that might be providing critical resources that we all need. Water are certainly among them. So yeah, I think this is a really good idea, right? Think about how we can think, you know, incorporating these kind of organizations into the broader mapping projects and also into the kind of work that we do.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, a hundred percent. And again, I have a big corporate background, so for me, you know, the, the role that corporates and, you know, I think of postal services I used to work at Australia Post, et cetera, can play. I think he’s just absolutely fundamental. So it’s not just a government and it’s not just a community problem. I think it’s it’s multi-stakeholder as well.

6. So apart from getting to work with me and catching up, with my dear self every time you come, what do you love about coming to Australia?

Daniel Aldrich

Wow. Lots of stuff. First of all, I love the linear reserves. One of my favorite activities in the morning is taking a stroll and, you know, you kind of feel like you’re out for me, someone who’s basically a city person, very much an urban child, the chance to walk, you know, for kilometers in these really green paths and no, not even two blocks away, right? If I need to get a flat white, I can get one around the corner. It’s fantastic. So I love that element that so many cities in Australia incorporate nature seriously into what they do. That’s one big thing. I also love the diversity in Australia. I just remember pretty much any taxi cab, Uber or anything I rode in a bus I would meet people from a variety of nations. I love the way that Australia has tackled the idea of migration so seriously. And, and recognizes the power that we come from diversity and diverse thoughts. And again, the idea that we’re building social capital. Also, I’ve also noticed the sports that I fully lack comprehension in like cricket, which with its woolys and centuries and everything else. So right near my house in Australia for, for example, there actually was a full, full sale kids cricket, thing going on, which I would just stare at for hours. So, for me, there’s a lot of fun things to do when I’m there.

Renae Hanvin

Well, when you come over in May we’ll have to try and get you to a footy match. Have you been to an AFL match?

Daniel Aldrich

Watched them on TV, but I’ve actually never been to one live.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, we’ll take you there. So, with my podcast with a final question.