Social capital and overcoming urban poverty: beyond of social policy

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to analyze the elements of social capital as a purposeful and useful tool to induce the restructuring of social policy in order to counter poverty in an urban environment like the city of Mexico. Four dimensions of social capital as strategies were analyzed to address this condition: trust, reciprocity, collective action, and networking. The method used for the collection of information departed from a qualitative perspective. The research instrument was the semi-structured interview. With these initial elements was obtained the information through answers of the interviewees, which were analyzed on the basis of the four categories of social capital. The findings show that self-management, as a way to encourage social cohesion, plays an important role at the level of community collective actions, at the same time allowed take advantage of available community resources, this being an adequate path to maximize the money used through social programs emanating from plans of social policies to eradicate poverty in urban conditions.