ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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‘NGOs crafting collective identities to build social capital for the poor – Does it work?’ An ethnographic research on Mainland Chinese migrant groups in Hong Kong
by
Sam Wong

Is moulding collective identities in groups possible? Does it help to generate social capital, such as trust and solidarity, for the members? Will crafting one particular collective identity result in the exclusion of an other? These are the questions I intend to answer in this paper.

Crafting collective identities was first proposed by neo-institutional economists who argued that collective actions are possible if there are ‘right’ kinds of institutions in groups. The World Bank popularises this notion by suggesting that identity is a missing ingredient in social capital theory and it helps to reduce transaction costs by channelling information and developing trust among group members. By investing in identity, the Bank claims that group participation helps to build the sense of belonging, trust and reciprocity which finally achieve collective actions and poverty reduction.

This premise, however, remains theoretical and little research amongst NGOs has touched upon this. My paper is intended to fill this gap by providing empirical case studies to examine the processes of collective identity construction. This paper draws upon my 12-month ethnographic research on two female Chinese migrant groups in Hong Kong. I worked as a helper in the groups and various research methods, including participant observation, interviews and focus group discussion, are combined.

To mould the ideal type of collective identities, development workers in my case studies deploy five strategies: (1) sanctions: intended to deter free-riders in groups; (2) empowerment: to make contrast between ‘we-ness’ and ‘they-ness’; (3) choosing group members of similar identity only: because workers believe that differences in identity are obstacles to collective actions; (4) making collective actions visible: by requesting members to record their contributions in the groups; and finally, (5) election: choosing the ‘right’ kind of group leaders.

The central feature of crafting institutions is that it is a top-down approach which is intended to replace old norms and identities with new ones. For example, workers endeavour to substitute informal social interactions, such as gossip, with group formality and transparency. Rules are set, group meetings become more institutionalised and collective actions more visualised.

The first lesson from the ‘getting institutions right’ approach is that it fails to problematise the concept of identity. Workers adopt a utilitarian and instrumental approach in which identity is merely a means to improve project efficiency. However, identity-building in social life is a far more complex process and identity may be highly contextualised, fluid, transformative as well as fragmented. Crafting an idealised collective identity then may simply impose a single, simplified group identity which neglects the multiple identities of migrants and denies the complexity of group members’ everyday lives. From my observation, for instance, voluntary and informal collective actions among members exist in the groups but because they do not fit into workers’ ideal types of collective actions, they are not recognised.

The crafting identity approach also denies the agency of members. In interviews, migrants do not agree with workers’ identity categories and they express their dissatisfactions about the idea of sanction. They accept the presence of free-riders in the groups because they acknowledge some members may be constrained from full participation due to special circumstances.

Finally, while collective identities are highly valued by NGOs, I think there is a need to highlight the dark side. They put further stress and burden on poor female migrants regarding time, resources and energy. The unintended consequences of crafting institutions may also result in contestation of identities between group members and their family members which may trigger conflicts and confrontations. All these may break, rather than build, migrants’ already limited social capital.

Date received: September 27, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # camk-37.