Summer 2000

Book Reviews



Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community By Robert D. Putnam 541 pp. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Robert Putnam--the Harvard professor who in his 1995 article,"Bowling Alone," descried a drop in joining groups, voting and volunteerism in the United States--is back with a new book of the same title. Here he attempts to trace causes and offer solutions to the collapse of community. Putnam was strongly attacked when his original article appeared. It was said that he focused too much of his attention on antiquated associations like bowling leagues, Elks and Boy Scouts and neglected more contemporary associations, among them self-help mutual aid groups, which flourished as the older forms phased out. Putnam countered that mutual aid groups did not create the strong civic bonds of neighborly associations. According to him, people who belong to mutual aid groups come and go as they wish and do not develop long-term commitments to each another. For Putnam, in order for a civic association to count as "social capital," the members have to be willing to make material, as well as emotional, commitments to one another, such as helping with favors, chores or babysitting. The network of material exchanges is all important.

But it all depends on what counts as a favor. For him, the valuable emotional and practical advice shared in a mutual aid group does not count, whereas helping someone take out the garbage does since measureable labor is accomplished. But it has never been studied whether self-helpers engage in material favor swapping or not, so there is no evidence either way. When it comes to self-help mutual aid associations, Putnam is still relying on stereotypical anecdote and not first hand information. And this is not an isolated gap. Putnam's emphasis on material favors invites a whole range of criticisms of his methodology, criteria for social capital and finally the base of data on which he makes his case. Just because he has mastered the data available to social scientists does not make him right, merely verified up to a certain standard. All in all, the evidence is just too thin for any solid claims; there doesn't seem to be enough reliable data to make pronouncements about civic trends in the whole United States and especially not about the civic impact of mutual aid groups.



Understanding Self-Help Mutual Aid: Experiential Learning in the Commons by Thomasina Borkman (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999).

By Frank Riessman

This book is an example of superb, original work that is a bit misrepresented by the title. I imagine, having been through the experience myself, that the publisher Rutgers University press probably thought that the broadest market would emanate from this broad title.

The subtitle tells the story much better "experiential learning in the commons." Early in the book, Borkman raises the questions: Who participates? Why do they place this value on the group? Two distinctions are primary for her: 1. "primary lived experience" and 2. "the voluntary commons." The first corresponds to self-help and the second to mutual aid. Borkman sees them as distinct but complementary phenomena manifested in self-help groups. Her definition on page 4 implies that self-help should be distinguished from mutual aid, as the former often draws on latent internal resources and healing powers.

My idea of self-help "writ large" is much broader. I see internality as the deeper meaning of both self-help and mutual aid: what is internal may be the self (hence self-help), the group (hence mutual aid is aid internal to the group), and the community. Sometimes self-help is individual self-help, "bootstraps," sometimes not. In discussing the characteristics of self-help, whether at the individual, group or community level, I endeavor to show that self-help approaches all employ internal forces to combat a problem, while non-self-help relies upon external forces.

In a cultural theme she takes up, Borkman argues persuasively that experiential first-person knowledge makes a powerful argument against the postmodern fragmentation of self, already a foregone conclusion in some quarters. There are many other such gems in this book for the careful reader. I like the fact that Borkman is vitally concerned with the broader issues raised by self-help, definitionally and culturally. These issues deserve much more play than they currently receive.

Journals

International Journal of Self-Help and Self-Care edited by Alfred Katz (School of Public Policy and Social Research UCLA) and Keith Humphreys (Stanford University School of Medicine). Baywood Publishing Company.

The creation of a journal for self help and self care indicates that the self help movement, including organizations, researchers and, of course, self help groups themselves has reached 'critical mass.' IJSHSC, which lies halfway between an academic journal and a self help magazine, is to be a source of peer-reviewed articles, news and developments and innovations in self help groups and organizations around the world. A look at the first issue gives ample evidence that those developments are very widespread and lively indeed. Articles in future issues will detail scientific studies, descriptions of self help organizations, news on self help related laws and public policies, announcements of events as well as opinion pieces on unresolved issues.