社会资本的地理学研究进展

随着社会资本在促进民主、发展经济、健康身体、解决贫困等方面的作用逐渐被人们认知,社会资本吸引了众多学科的关注,地理学者也意识到社会资本对地理现象的解释作用,并结合具体问题开展了一些实证性研究,但由于在地理学中引入社会资本的研究历史较短,国内迄今尚缺乏系统性的梳理和研究架构的探讨。本文在研读近年来国内外相关文献的基础上,对基于空间尺度、地域性差异的社会资本研究,以及社会资本在经济地理、城市社会地理、健康地理等领域的研究进行梳理和总结,并从社会资本的地理学研究思路与框架、测量指标、以及研究领域的拓展等方面进行了展望,以期促进社会资本在地理学领域研究的深入展开,丰富社会资本的理论与实践。

Progress of social capital research in geography

With its role in promoting democracy, economic growth, improving health and alleviating poverty gradually being realized, social capital has become the focus of many research efforts in various disciplines. Geographers also realize that social capital plays an important part in explaining geographical phenomena. In recent years, researchers in China and abroad have undertaken various empirical studies based on specific issues, but the introduction of social capital in the study of geography remains to be of a short history. Especially in China, the study of social capital in geography lacks a systematic review and exploration of an analytical framework. Based on the examination of a large number of international and Chinese literature on this kind of research, this article systematically summarizes and reviews the studies from the following aspects: the spatiality of social capital, the introduction of social capital in solving geographical issues, the application of social capital in various sub-disciplines, such as economic geography, urban geography, health geography, and so on. Meanwhile, this article brings about a number of issues that should be further examined and some new research perspectives that deserve to be broadened in the near future. For example, the approach and framework of solving geographical issues from the perspective of social capital and the measurements of social capital in the field of geographical research. By doing so, this article attempts to promote the application of social capital in geographical studies and enrich theoretical research and practices of social capital.