کاوش سرمایه فرهنگی و اهمیت آن در توسعه پایدار

This paper explores the concept of cultural capital and suggests a framework for assessing its influence in the management and use of natural capital. Cultural capital has been described as the underlying factors that provide human societies with the means and adaptations to maintain themselves in their environment. Sustainable development calls for a shift in the way in which natural capital is managed and used and much effort has gone into discussing and analysing the sustainable development process and mechanisms by which natural capital levels can be maintained. Cultural capital is an important, but much neglected, element in this process. There have been attempts to analyse the role of culture in development, but these have been few and isolated. This paper identifies three key areas in which cultural capital has influence: ‘management objectives’, ‘efficiency of process’ and ‘demand’. These three areas form the basis of an analysis framework, designed to assess the presence of various cultural traits with regard to the main functions of natural capital—the provision of: raw materials, sinks, environmental services and amenity services.

1.1. Sustainable development The concept of sustainable development has come to dominate the debate regarding economic development (Edwards-Jones et al., 2000). It has its origins in the Commission on Environment and Development which was formed by the UN in 1983 to investigate environmental issues regarding economic development. In 1987, the Commission published Our Common Future (also known as the Bruntland Report). This report is now acknowledged as a landmark publication in the development of environmental awareness and particularly the need for environmental concerns to be integrated into all aspects of successful development. The report defines sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The Earth Summit in 1992 reinforced the concept of sustainable development which has since become widely embraced and integrated into policies and procedures. There is a growing, global consensus that attempts to acknowledge the interests of future generations and other species. Central to sustainable development is how we use the Earth's natural resources and the processes by which they are transformed. This can be described in terms of capital. 1.2. The capital issue Capital is the material needed for production of valuable goods and services, and productive capital of some sort is needed to satisfy needs. Capital takes several forms and the distribution of different types of capital represents the set of constraints that determine what production activities are possible (Bourdieu, 1986). Classical economics identified three types of capital: land, labour and human-made capital (often referred to as just ‘capital’). Neo-classical production functions often omitted land and only focussed on labour and capital. For ecological economists, natural capital is a key concept and is considered one of the forms of capital. There is no consensus on a definitive division of types of capital. Costanza and Daly (1992) used the terms natural capital, human capital and manufactured capital to correspond to the traditional economic production factors. Ekin (1992) disaggregated the capital stock into four types: natural, human, social/organisational and manufactured. In this paper we will use three types: natural, cultural and human-made capital which are described in more detail below. Human-made capital, or manufactured capital, is capital generated through economic activity, human ingenuity and technological change—the produced means of production. It comprises material goods such as tools, machines, buildings and infrastructure which contribute to the production process but do not become embodied in the output. Natural capital, sometimes called ecological capital, performs four distinct functions. It provides a resource for production—the raw materials that become timber, fuel or food. As a source of raw materials, natural capital can be renewable or non-renewable and the harvesting of these stocks is the basis of much economic activity. Secondly, it acts as a sink for waste products, both from the process of production and the products themselves. Thirdly, it provides a range of life support functions, or environmental services, such as flood or erosion control and climate stability. Fourth, it contributes to human welfare directly through amenity services such as attractive landscapes. There is a large sub-category of natural capital, ‘cultivated natural capital’, that is intermediate between natural and human-made capital. This consists of things such as plantation forests, agricultural crops or livestock herds. Cultivated natural capital supplies the raw material input but generally provides less of the wide range of natural ecological services characteristic of natural capital. In addition, there is another area of capital, also fundamental to the production of goods and services. Veblen, writing in 1908, was one of the first to identify the existence of a form of capital other than those commonly considered at that time (McCormick, 2002). He noted that the productivity of capital (i.e. human-made capital) was intimately linked to society's pool of knowledge which is produced and possessed by the community as a whole. In the 1960's, neo-classical economists such as Becker and Schultz introduced the concept of human capital, arguing that the society's endowment of educated, trained and healthy workers determined productivity (Becker, 1962 and Schultz, 1963). The term human capital is now sometimes used to mean education and skills (Costanza et al., 1997) or labour (Edwards-Jones et al., 2000). The World Bank distinguishes between human capital, which is determined by levels of nutrition, health and education, and social capital. Social capital has been widely used to cover social networks, contacts and trust (Coleman, 1990 and Putman et al., 1993). Kliksberg (1999) notes that studies show that it is human and social capital (as opposed to natural capital and constructed capital) that were responsible for most economic development in the later years of the twentieth century and that they are key to technical progress, competitiveness, sustained growth, good governance and stable democracies. Bourdieu (1986) distinguishes between social capital, which is the actual or potential resources linked to membership of a group, and cultural capital, which can be ‘embodied’ as a state of the mind/body, ‘objectified’ in the form of cultural goods, or ‘institutionalised’. Berkes and Folke (1994) use the term cultural capital to describe the ‘rules of society’ or factors that provide human societies with the means and adaptations to deal with the natural environment. It includes elements such as socio-political institutions, values and needs, social preferences, environmental ethics and traditional ecological knowledge in a society. We can say that cultural capital, being the aptitude or inclination of a group or society to behave in a certain way, underlies human and social capital and describes the potential of a group or society. We should note at this stage that the concepts of social capital and cultural capital are problematic for mainstream economists. Mainstream economics, based on methodological individualism, holds that the social cannot be identified separately of individual interactions. ‘Social relations, customs and structures…do not exist independently of the individuals that constitute them.’ (Fine and Green, 2000, pp. 85). On the other hand, the social scientists' concept of culture refers to something that is inherently social—‘Individuals are embedded in their cultural surrounds…and to some degree constructed by those surrounds’ (Francois, 2002, pp. 11). Thus, in attempting to marry the economic and the social, one meets challenges in the divergent theoretical bases of the two disciplines. Acknowledging that this debate exists, we maintain that cultural capital is a useful concept and valuable in drawing attention to important factors affecting economic life that might otherwise go unnoticed. 1.3. Interactions between forms of capital The different types of capital are used in combination to give rise to flows of goods and services and wealth creation. Sustainable development requires that the needs of future generations are considered alongside those of today's societies. If capital stocks are not maintained, the flow of goods and services will decrease over time and the intergenerational aspect of sustainability will not be met. There is considerable debate as to whether it is the total capital stock that needs to be maintained, which assumes that one type of capital can be substituted for another, or whether certain components of capital, particularly natural capital, contribute to welfare in a unique way that cannot be replicated by another capital component. These positions are described as ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ sustainability (Turner, 1993). Weak sustainability is derived from the perception that welfare is not normally dependent on a specific from of capital and can be maintained by substituting human-made for natural capital. This is the position adopted by neo-classical economics. Strong sustainability, on the other hand, holds that such substitutability is seriously limited by such environmental characteristics as irreversibility, uncertainty and the existence of ‘critical’ components of natural capital (Pearce and Turner, 1990) which, if destroyed, has profoundly damaging consequences. (See Ekins et al. (2003) for an in depth discussion on critical natural capital.) Ecological economists promote the strong sustainability position and argue that a condition for sustainability is to maintain the total natural capital stock at or above the current level (Daly and Cobb, 1990). As well as investing in stocks of natural capital, attention needs to be paid to using it efficiently. Costanza et al. (1997) argue that the evolution of the human economy has passed from an era in which human-made capital was the limiting factor in economic development to an era in which the remaining natural capital has become the limiting factor. We should therefore maximise the productivity of natural capital, the scarcest factor, and emphasis should shift from technologies that increase the productivity of labour and human-made capital to those that increase the productivity of natural capital. Natural capital productivity is increased by increasing the flow of goods and services per unit of natural stock, and increasing the end-use efficiency with which the resulting product yields services to the final user. In addition, from the demand side, tastes and values will affect the economic productivity of natural capital (Costanza et al., 1997). It would seem likely that cultural capital is a key factor in this process. How is cultural capital used in the production of goods and services? Fig. 1 shows the interactions between the different forms of capital. Natural capital is used to produce human-made capital through the provision of raw materials and environmental services. Natural capital also provides a sink for waste products. Both processes usually deplete natural capital stocks although depletion can be reduced by replacing renewable natural capital, for example by planting trees or composting organic waste. Cultural capital influences these processes. Berkes and Folke (1994) suggest that cultural capital is positioned at the interface of natural capital and human-made capital. They emphasise the importance of cultural capital in mediating and controlling natural capital–human-made capital interactions and describe a fundamental and co-evolutionary relationship between the three types of capital. It can be said that human-made capital is ‘never value-neutral, but a product of evolving cultural values and norms’ (Berkes and Folke, 1994, pp. 132). Also, the three forms of capital combine to produce final products or welfare goods and services, and it is the nature of the three types of capital that dictate the goods and services that can be produced. Nearly all final products need all three types of capital, although a few amenity service products, such as the intrinsic value and beauty of wilderness, may not require human-made capital.Despite its obvious importance, the concept of cultural capital has received little attention and, at this juncture, we should discuss it in more depth. We will firstly explore what culture is and how it is interposed between humans and the environment. We will then turn to discuss recent recognition of the importance of culture in development and attempts to analyse its role.

This paper has explored the role of cultural capital in the management and use of natural capital for sustainable development. We found that, although the importance of culture in development has been noted, there is a need to explore further the manner in which it affects processes and outcomes. Accepting the strong sustainability position and recognising that this calls for endeavours to increase the productivity of natural capital, we discussed ways in which culture affects the management and use of natural capital. We described cultural capital as likely to have influence in three key areas: (a) management objectives, (b) efficiency of process and (c) demand. An analysis framework was suggested, designed to assess the effects of culture on these three areas with regard to the main functions of natural capital—provision of: (a) raw materials, (b) sinks, (c) environmental services, and (d) amenity services. It is proposed that the framework developed could provide a useful tool through which to analyse the role and importance of culture and reveal key cultural traits that constrain or facilitate the sustainable development process. It is emphasised that this framework needs testing and refining.