Mapping social capital across Wales (UK) using secondary data and spatial analysis

Irfan, Muhammad ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7991-1154, Buckley, Kelly ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8862-3776, Cheung, Sin Yi ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9913-1451, Lewis, James ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8603-2761, Koj, Aleksandra ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5294-2492 and Thomas, Hywel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3951-0409 2023. Mapping social capital across Wales (UK) using secondary data and spatial analysis. SN Social Sciences 3 , 56. 10.1007/s43545-023-00639-1

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Abstract

Social capital, a powerful community resource based on trust, relationships, norms, culture, values, networks and belonging, could shape the acceptance, cooperation, and involvement of citizens towards new policies or interventions. In past, connections of social capital have been studied with human health, wellbeing, social and economic development. More recently, social capital is studied with respect to human resilience and adaptation to climate change. We argue that social capital could also play a vital role in our efforts to reduce carbon footprint through behaviour change, a shift on shared local renewable energy resources, and adoption of low carbon technologies. In Wales (UK) there is no national scale dataset, reflecting its social capital landscape, that could be used for designing the right policies/interventions in this context, based on an expected level of trust, cooperation, and support within the communities. This paper is an effort to fill this data gap using secondary datasets. Firstly, a literature review is carried out to identify the indicators of social capital (cognitive and participatory). Secondary datasets have then been identified and acquired. Geospatial analysis has been carried out to produce the criterion maps for various indicators of social capital. Finally, Analytical Hierarchy Process is applied to generate a social capital map of Wales (UK) combining these indicators together. For validation of the produced data, social capital’s known correlations were tested with crime rates, income level and multiple deprivations.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Engineering
Publisher:	Springer
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 March 2023
Date of Acceptance:	13 February 2023
Last Modified:	07 Jan 2024 03:27
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157409

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