The complex relationship between putting down roots and moving on to better things - and what it means for civil society policy
It was heartening to see pledges of more support for social enterprise and charities in Conservative Manifesto. But it is also interesting that David Cameron views the means for achieving the entire wider vision as “modest,”
"because it's not about some magic new plan dreamed up in Whitehall and imposed from on high. It's about enabling and encouraging people to come together to solve their problems and make life better."
Consider this in the context of Cameron's wish for “every adult to be part of an active neighbourhood group.” This will be no modest feat. Here is one obstacle.
Geographical mobility is a hugely positive thing. Experiencing new opportunities, cultures and people enriches our lives and inspires us to try new things and achieve more. Being able to move from city to city, country to country is a luxury. Isolated, inward-looking communities where there is little or no interaction with wider society can be harmful. Consider this headline from February:
Teenagers Trapped in London's Poor Estates have never been on Tube.
Or research that suggests students from areas with little or no tradition of sending teenagers to university - invariably the poorest neighbourhoods - are 25 per cent more likely to study at an institution within a 30-minute car journey from their home than those from affluent areas. Here we have lack of geographical mobility and an inward-looking local culture stymieing social mobility. This means that every year 3,000 high flyers from deprived areas don't apply to the best universities in the country, not because they don't have the grades but because "Students from lower socioeconomic groups tend to internalise wider constructions of themselves as 'undeserving' and 'inferior' and tend to choose local institutions where they feel more comfortable… They tend not to choose more prestigious universities where they risk 'not fitting in.”
Perhaps if those students had experienced the adventure and excitement of travel and/or a broadening of their horizons - which no doubt many of their better-off contemporaries have - they would be more open to attending a distant university. There are of course other factors at work keeping people in the same place, such as reliance on family and friends, but I wonder: is this a situation where having a strong connection to a local area, valuing the collective above the personal, is actually harming an individual's life chances?
There is
evidence to suggest that geographical mobility is associated with the primacy of the personal over the collective self. This can have a less than positive impact on society. The
Young Foundation argues that ‘loneliness and a lack of social networks have become a stark feature of a more individualistic society.' The numbers are depressing: half a million pensioners spending Christmas Day alone, a million people having no-one to turn to and no-one who appreciates them, seven million people suffering from a ‘severe' lack of social support.
Shigehiro Oishi's work suggests a link associating geographical mobility with personal forms of subjective well-being (based on self-esteem) as opposed to interpersonal forms of subjective well-being (based on social support). Asked to describe themselves, itinerants are much more likely to mention personal traits, while less mobile people are more apt to mention important group affiliations. Oishi argues that mobile people don't belong to many groups and this tendency weakens their overall sense of community identity. He associates geographical mobility with “duty-free” friendships rather than obligatory friendships and group memberships. “Duty-free” relationships lack the deep sense of social obligation that characterizes what Oishi calls “traditional” friendships. They are based more on shared interests and similarities of personality rather than group membership.
So what does this all mean for the Big Society? How will the Conservatives transform members of Facebook groups into members of neighbourhood groups? How, in an increasingly mobile world - which brings enormous benefits - are the Conservatives going to encourage the collective self over the primacy of the person – surely something necessary to realize their vision, but which appears to be at great odds with contemporary society? Or perhaps the Big Society can be founded on “duty-free” friendships? Chances are that a new middle ground must be forged with compromises on both sides.
Possible? Yes. Easy? No.