Social and Cultural Capital: Empowerment for Sustainable Development in the MOUNTAINS OF ESCAZU, COST by Phillip J. Montoya - HTML preview

FOOTNOTES

[1]             (Romano Sancho, political activist, community organizer and farmer; Rodolfo León, local farmer and community leader; Julio Jiménez, Municipality employee and part time farmer; Francisco Mejía (Pito), teacher; Paulina Chaverri, university graduate in history; Luis Fernando Chacón, graphic artist; and Mario Sandí, local farmer and manager of the farmers' cooperative).

[1]             This physiological metaphor Romano employs has the meaning of antagonists.

[1]             Foundations, unlike Associations, are required by law in Costa Rica to have one representative of the Executive Branch and one representative of the Municipal government on the Directive Board.  This allows greater State control over the activities of foundations.

[1]             According to several elder farmers I interviewed who knew Jorge Zeledón, he accumulated land through usurious practices with local small farmers, and other unscrupulous methods, such as obtaining signatures from drunken farmers, and by having his peons claim homesteads in the moutains, which they then turned over to Zeledón for a pittance.

[1]             These physical resources, unlike social and cultural capital which increase when used, resemble more a finite pie, where the piece that goes to one, is taken away from the other.

[1]             In 1989 the members of COPROALDE were: CEDECO (Corporación Educativa para el Desarrollo Costarricense); EL PRODUCTOR (Servicios Técnicos y Profesionales El Productor); TEPROCA (Taller Experimental de Producción y Comercialización Agrícola Alternativa; CICDAA (Consultoría de Investigación y Capacitación para un Desarrollo Agrario Alternativo); CECADE (Centro de Capacitación para el Desarrollo); and EconoAgro El Sembrador.

[1]             During this period two other organizations also joined COPROALDE: CENAP (Centro Nacional de Acción Pastoral), and GUILOMBE (Fundación Güilombé para la Communicación y la Agricultura Biológica).  In contrast, three of the original members left COPROALDE: CICDAA, CECADE and Econoagro El Sembrador.  Soon after, COPROALDE promoted the creation of an organization of its beneficiaries, ANAPAO (Asociación Nacional de Pequeños Agricultores Orgánicos), which became the seventh member of the network.

[1]             The participants of the NGO meeting were:

Organization                                                         Person

ACECAN                                                                              James Siu

ACJ                                                                                        Fernando Lara

ADEHUCO                                                                           Julio Acuña

AECO                                                                                    Jaime Bustamante

AECO                                                                                    Jorge Polimeni

AECO                                                                                    Oscar Fallas

APDE                                                                                     José Luis Castillo

ASEPROLA                                                                          Mariano Sainz

CECADE                                                                               Alexander Loynaz

CECADE                                                                               William Reuben

CEDECO                                                                               Wilberth Jiménez

CODECE                                                                               Felipe Montoya

Colectivo Pancha Carrasco                                               Lily Quesada

Colectivo Pancha Carrasco                                               Tita Escalante

Coordinadora de Barrios                                                   Mario Céspedes

COPROALDE                                                                      Paulina Chaverri

FECON                                                                                  Isabel MacDonald

Fundación Güilombé                                                          Cileke Comanne

Fundación Güilombé                                                          Javier Bogantes

ICAL                                                                                      Victor Vega

JUNAFORCA                                                                       Franklin Rodríguez

Universidad Nacional-ECA                                               Eduardo Mora

VECINOS                                                                             Juan Manuel Castro

[1]             At this point CONAO was made up of the 170 organizations that participated in the National Assembly.  These included individual grassroots organizations and NGOs, such as AECO, CODECE, and CECADE, as well as networks of organizations, such as COPROALDE and others.

[1]             Economists might try to counter my argument of the subtractable nature of economic capital, pointing out the obvious fact that economic capital, too, may be invested and reproduced, virutally ad infinitum.  However, this refers to the "end-products" of investing economic capital, and not to the initial amount, which is finite and not immediately reproducible.  Social and cultural capitals, in contrast, are not immediately subtractable. In presenting a friend to others, I don't lose that friend.  By giving out information to others, I am not suddenly deprived of it.

[1]             In January of 1999, by chance I ran into Jorge Coronado who had been the Secretary General of CONAO during most of its existence.  I asked him about the fate of CONAO and he recounted how in CONAO's last National Assembly in 1998, its membership had completely changed, taken up, ironically, by large mainstream NGOs in line with State policies and the business sector.

[1]             See chapter 9.

[1]             For instance, following Gerardo Burro's example, other people in Escazú also began to partake of their town's tradition, making payazos, themselves.

[1]             On a very personal note, for example, my work in CODECE inspired me to set up the MILPA Foundation in Escazú, for the recovery and protection of heirloom seeds and related local knowledge.