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How the Arts Generate Social Capital to

Foster Intergroup Social Cohesion
a
Dahyun Lee
a
The Ohio State University , Columbus , Ohio
Published online: 07 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: Dahyun Lee (2013) How the Arts Generate Social Capital to Foster
Intergroup Social Cohesion, The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 43:1, 4-17, DOI:
10.1080/10632921.2012.761167

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 THE JOURNAL OF ARTS MANAGEMENT, LAW, AND SOCIETY, 43: 4–17, 2013
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ISSN: 1063-2921 print / 1930-7799 online
DOI: 10.1080/10632921.2012.761167

How the Arts Generate Social Capital to Foster

Intergroup Social Cohesion

Dahyun Lee
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
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Through the case study of the Guernica Peace Mural Project (GPMP) in Columbus, Ohio, which
involved American and Somali groups, I explore how participatory community arts generate social
capital to promote intergroup social cohesion. The use of participatory and collaborative arts, high-
level interactions and “authentic personal interactions,”1 and nonhierarchical relationships or equal
partnerships in an informal setting in the GPMP produce a new kind of social capital, “bridged
bonding.” Bridging the differences between the two groups and bonding them into one integrated
whole, bridged-bonding social capital is applied as social glue to create a cohesive multicultural
community.
Keywords community development, informal arts, intercultural dialogue, participatory arts, social
capital, social cohesion

INTRODUCTION

Promoting social cohesion through participatory community arts projects has been reviewed
to some degree in discussions of community development through the arts (Matarasso 1997;
Mattern 2001; Wali, Severson, and Longoni 2002). However, detailed discussion or analysis of
how participation and collaboration in the arts, especially in informal arts, generate different
kinds of social capital that promote social cohesion in communities composed of distinct ethnic
and cultural groups has been minimal. Through the case study of the Guernica Peace Mural
Project (GPMP) in Columbus, Ohio, that involved participation from and collaboration between
two different cultures—American graduate students (none of whom were Somali) and Somali
children—I aim to identify, characterize, and analyze the kinds of actions in the GPMP that can
generate distinctive outcomes, how such outcomes engender different kinds of social capital, and
how their application fosters intergroup social cohesion. Operationalizing the characteristics of the
kinds of activities in participatory arts that appear to generate significant social capital of different
kinds and explaining how different kinds of social capital are applied to advance intergroup social

The author wishes to thank her professors, Dr. Margaret Wyszomirski and Dr. Karen Hutzel in the Department of
Arts Administration, Education and Policy at The Ohio State University, for their expert advice, guidance, and feedback
throughout the research and writing of this article. She is also grateful to all of the research participants who shared their
time, experiences, and views on the Guernica Peace Mural Project with her.
Address correspondence to Dahyun Lee, The Ohio State University, 1st Floor Stadium, 1961 Tuttle Park Place,
Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: lee.3722@osu.edu
 HOW THE ARTS GENERATE SOCIAL CAPITAL 5

cohesion is the goal of the study. In this article, first I will provide a brief description of the GPMP
and research methods I adopted in the study. Then I will explain how five key characteristics
of the GPMP—(1) the use of participatory and collaborative arts, (2) high-level interactions,
(3) authentic personal interactions, (4) an informal setting, and (5) nonhierarchical relationships
or equal partnerships—engender three categories of outcomes, exposure and understanding,
relationships, and solidified connections. Finally, I will identify and analyze how different kinds
of social capital, bridging and bonding across the groups, are generated in each category of
outcome and how they are applied to promote social cohesion across the groups.

BACKGROUND
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The Guernica Peace Mural Project in Columbus, a participatory and collaborative mural-making
project, took place from July 26 through July 30, 2010, in an old bookstore near the Ohio State
University (OSU) campus in conjunction with a graduate-level course offered by the Department
of Art Education at OSU entitled Community-Based Art Education for Social Justice: Partnering
to Build a Guernica Peace Mural. The participants in the GPMP included eighteen American
graduate students, seven of whom were practicing art teachers. The GPMP also partnered with a
local nonprofit organization, the Somali Women and Children’s Alliance (SWCA), and involved
approximately twenty Somali children between the ages of five and eighteen who were enrolled
in a summer program at the SWCA. Some of the children in the children’s group were related.
The GPMP is based on the International Kids’ Guernica Peace Mural Project, which originated
in Japan in 1995 to extend the spirit of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. In 1937, Picasso painted
Guernica on canvas purposefully for easier travel to protest the devastation of the Spanish Civil
War abroad. In keeping with Picasso’s antiwar intention for Guernica, the objectives of the
International Kids’ Guernica Peace Mural Project are to remove “separation among nations,
races, religions, cultures and people,” so that people are connected, and to “[express] the spirit
of peace” (Kids’ Guernica 2009). Like Picasso’s piece, the GPMP is painted on a Guernica-size
canvas (3.5 meters by 7.8 meters); thus, the mural can travel around the world and inspire other
groups at each stop to create their own mural of peace (see Figure 1). For over fifteen years, the
project has inspired the creation of more than 160 murals in over forty different countries. The
exhibition of these murals brings a message of peace to many different places and communities.
In Columbus, Ohio, the GPMP hoped to connect the group of American graduate students
with a group of Somali children. Ohio has the second-largest Somali community in the United
States. More than 45,000 Somali immigrants and refugees live in Ohio and at least 38,000 call
the Columbus metropolitan area home. However, interactions and exchanges between the Somali
community and the rest of the Columbus community have been minimal. Somali immigrants and
refugees in Columbus face a lack of cultural understanding as well as prejudice or discrimination
against them because of language, cultural, and religious barriers. It was the intention of the
GPMP in Columbus for the project to address these issues by involving Somali children in the
project.
Over the course of five days, American graduate students and Somali children collaborated
on the creation of a mural about peace and journeys (see Figure 1). Mural making was the core
activity of the project, but the project also involved such activities as an OSU campus tour; short
drawing, painting, and writing activities; and, on the last day, a celebration in which the two
 6 LEE
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FIGURE 1 Guernica peace mural: Journey to peace. (color figure available online)

groups ate Somali food together and went out to the streets and to the OSU campus to invite
people to see the mural.

RESEARCH METHOD

In conducting my research, first I used participatory observation by taking part in the mural
project as a graduate student and as an assistant to the coordinator and instructor of the project. In
addition, I conducted twenty-one semistructured interviews that included some of the American
graduate students, members of the Somali group, and volunteers from the SWCA. I interviewed
both members of the American adult group and children in the Somali group in an attempt to
capture and represent the individual voices of both groups. However, given children’s limited
ability to articulate their feelings and opinions, the study appears to represent the position of the
American graduate students more strongly than that of the Somali children. I analyzed a survey
questionnaire that was distributed to the eighteen American graduate students, twelve (67 percent)
of which were returned (see Appendix A). I also analyzed 117 online postings of graduate student
reflections on the project.2 However, the data from online postings have their own limitations
because they were part of graduate students’ assignment for the course and students wrote them
with the expectation that they would be graded. Thus, these respondents might have been less
candid about any discontent or dissatisfaction about the project. I attempted to overcome this
limitation to some extent by triangulating the three methods that I used: observation, survey, and
interviews.
 HOW THE ARTS GENERATE SOCIAL CAPITAL 7

TABLE 1
Characteristics, Outcomes, Social Capital Indicators, and Applications

Characteristics of the
Social Capital Generation GPMP Outcomes Social Capital Indicators

Stage 1
Generating bridging The use of participatory and Exposure and Increased understanding of
capital collaborative arts understanding Somali people and Somali
culture
Tolerance of difference
Stage 2
Generating bonding High level of interactions, Relationships Friendship
capital across the groups authentic personal Empathy
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interactions, and informal

setting
Nonhierarchical Relationships and Mutual trust
relationships or equal solidified connections Mutual respect
partnerships

Applications
Stage 3
Solidifying the bridged All characteristics in Bridged-bonded social A sense of oneness
bonds through combination group Solidarity
application of social Cohesion
capital

FIVE KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GPMP AND THREE

DISTINCTIVE OUTCOMES

The five key characteristics of the GPMP include (1) the use of participatory and collaborative arts,
(2) high level interactions, (3) authentic personal interactions, (4) an informal setting, and (5) non-
hierarchical relationships or equal partnerships. These characteristics, embedded in the interaction
between the two groups, work constructively to yield three categories of outcomes—exposure and
understanding, relationships, and solidified connections—where different kinds of social capital
are generated and applied (see Table 1). The first category of outcome, exposure and understand-
ing, associates more with cross-cultural exposure and learning of participants, whereas the next
two categories of outcomes concern building and developing relationships among participants.
As the project proceeded and interactions and engagement deepened, generated outcomes tended
to move from the exposure and learning level to the relational level. In the study, I used nine
indicators and applications of social capital to explain and evaluate the quality, features, and
attributes of relationships and connections between the two groups built in the project: increased
understanding of Somali people and Somali culture, tolerance of difference, friendship, empathy,
mutual trust, mutual respect, a sense of oneness, solidarity, and cohesion.

EXPOSURE AND UNDERSTANDING

The first characteristics, the use of participatory and collaborative arts, resulted in increasing
the participants’ exposure to one another’s culture and promoted cross-cultural understanding.
 8 LEE

Collaborative and participatory arts activities such as the mural in the GPMP brought the two
cultural groups together who would not have otherwise interacted. The mural also enabled them to
communicate with each other openly and to share and better understand each others’ ideas. As one
graduate student shared, “[the mural] gave us something to think and talk about together. It gave us
the opportunity to find common ground, as well as learn about our differences.” Another graduate
student observed that “this collaboration piece has separated the dividing lines of who is the teacher
and who is the student”; thus, more open communication and sharing between the two groups cen-
tered on the mural were made possible. The mural also enabled visual communication in helping
to overcome language barriers. As one graduate student noted, “The language barrier has really
been pretty minimal for me. The students were able to communicate visually with us and with help
from one another.” Participatory arts, considered as “authentic, respected, accessible, enjoyable,
welcomed, and effective,” can reach out across social and cultural boundaries (Moriarty 2004, 45).
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In their conversations and collaboration on the mural, the participants’ exposure to the other
culture’s values and norms increased and understanding of one another’s cultures and lifestyles
improved. The Somali children found that in American culture, contrary to their own culture,
women can wear short sleeves, sing American pop songs, and put on nail polish. The graduate
students said that they learned about the culture, customs, and behavior patterns of the Somali
children, such as hierarchical relationships between boys and girls and between older and younger
children in the group. The graduate students also noticed that there is a stronger communal sense
in Somali culture; children are more open to sharing their possessions with others and working
more cooperatively. One graduate student who is also a teacher shared an experience she had
with her eleven-year-old partner that reveals how each participant encountered the differences of
the other’s culture and started to accept and tolerate, as well as value, differences:

One conversation occurred as we were walking [on the OSU campus] and saw a Caucasian, bikini
clad, student sunbathing. My partner, wondering what the girl was doing and why anyone would
want darker skin like hers, . . . asked: “Isn’t she afraid someone will shoot her because she’s wearing
that?” Another time, as my partner and I were drawing, she told me she couldn’t paint faces because
she would be “punished.” I am so not wanting to appear judgmental or self-righteous and have
become very aware of my ignorance knowing about the Somali/Muslim/African culture! Stating that,
however, I am disturbed by her comments that to me reflect “seeds” of low self-esteem, submission
and fear. . . . I have truly been influenced to research my partner’s culture in hopes that I might
understand and start a discussion with my students about issues facing others in different parts of the
world.

The project also offered both groups opportunities to reflect on values and norms of their own
culture and identity and to make comparisons with the culture of their partner in the project.
The result of the survey demonstrates that cultural understanding and knowledge appear to
have improved, for the most part (see Appendix A, question 17). Three (25 percent) graduate
students responded that their understanding of Somali people and Somali culture significantly
improved; eight (67 percent) responded that it had moderately improved; and one (8 percent)
responded that it had not improved. Students reported that their cultural understanding improved
only moderately because Somali cultural or ethnic content was not the explicit focus of the
project. The total period of the project, five days, was too short to learn about another culture,
and the graduate students were limited to learning about Somali culture from children. However,
the graduate students still gained greater understanding of Somali people and culture through
 HOW THE ARTS GENERATE SOCIAL CAPITAL 9

observation and from the stories the Somali children told them about their lives. The students thus
learned about how children dress and play; their food, language, and religious beliefs; the role
of females in traditional Somali culture; as well as the problems that Somali children face, such
as familial separation, language barriers, lack of acceptance from others, struggles in cultural
difference, or relocation.
For the Somali children, this participatory and collaborative art experience in mural making,
drawing, and painting, was enjoyable and gave them a chance to express themselves. “Fun”
was the word that arose most frequently in the interview in the children’s description of their
experience of mural making. The children said that in the project they could present different
ideas and draw their dreams and that the final mural made them feel proud of themselves; twelve
out of thirteen (92 percent) children said that they would like to participate in another mural
project like this. The intern who worked with the children helping the summer program in the
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SWCA told me that the children talked a lot about the mural project after it was finished and said
that they wanted to return to create another mural.
In summary, participatory and collaborative mural making promotes intercultural dialogue,
mutual understanding, and joyful cocreation. Thus, the participants gained exposure to one
another’s culture and increased their cross-cultural understanding. Indicators of social capital
such as increased understanding of Somali people and Somali culture and tolerance of difference
were engendered here, implying that each group was understood by its counterpart and that the
two groups were bridged and connected (see Table 1). Cross-cultural understanding and tolerance
of difference form the foundation of the next two categories of more relational outcomes: building
relationships and solidified connections.

FROM EXPOSURE AND UNDERSTANDING TO BUILDING

RELATIONSHIPS

The GPMP is designed to maximize the interactions between two groups and their interactions
are characterized by authentic personal interactions. These high-level interactions and authentic
personal interactions moved outcomes from exposure and understanding to building relationships.
During the project, each child was partnered with one graduate student and the pairs worked
collaboratively throughout every phase of the mural for approximately five hours each day for
five days, which maximized the interaction between the two groups in the GPMP. In the survey, all
of the American graduate students rated the interaction level with Somali children in the project
as either “very high,” or “quite high” (see Appendix A, question 6).
The graduate students and Somali children engaged in casual conversations ranging from what
peace means to them to their stories about family, siblings, school, and life in the United States.
Throughout the project, the graduate students not only assisted the children in deliberating and
visualizing ideas with drawing and painting but also took care of the children’s general needs, such
as accompanying them to the bathroom, helping them wash their hands, or bringing them drinking
water. The graduate students independently described their interactions with the children as
authentic personal interactions or honest human interactions. In pairings, high-level engagement
and authentic personal interactions clearly provided for stronger and deeper relationships.
The project’s casual site, an old bookstore, contributed to the informal interaction between
the groups, which was amplified by a number of other factors. The familiarity among several
siblings and other relatives within the Somali group and the connectedness between pairs of
 10 LEE

graduate students and Somali children also created an informal atmosphere for the project. Wali,
Severson, and Longoni (2002) termed the inclusive character of informal arts practice as “the
metaphorical space of informality” and argued that it allows participants to engage with the
arts “in a non-intimidating manner” (xvi). The informal atmosphere created an inclusive and
accessible environment that enabled participants to feel more relaxed and to openly share ideas
and actively engage with each other (Wali, Severson, and Longoni 2002).
A graduate student who is a public schoolteacher stressed the significance of informal engage-
ment with the children, because educators often have only a limited opportunity to get to know
their students on a personal level in school. Often, within a school environment, relationships with
students are formal and this formality can discourage the formation of personal relationships. She
commented that the informal interactions she was able to have with the Somali children opened
her eyes to their personal stories. Informal engagements created by casual settings in addition
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to high-level personal interactions also contributed to developing more personal and close rela-
tionships. In these relationships, indicators of social capital such as friendship and empathy were
produced, which moved the relationship between the two groups further than if they were simply
bridged or connected (see Table 1).

FROM RELATIONSHIPS TO SOLIDIFIED CONNECTIONS

Developing a nonhierarchical relationship or an equal partnership between the two groups is the
intention of the GPMP. These relationship characteristics aid in strengthening the bond between
participants and lead to more solidified connections. The coordinator and instructor of the project
instructed the graduate students not to approach their child partners as teachers or leaders but,
instead, as facilitators, helpers, or equal learners. The graduate students came to the project as
active learners seeking to better understand Somali culture, to learn how to interact with Somali
children, and to develop their teaching methods and skills in engaging community members from
a different ethnic background. It was not a relationship in which adults only gave and the children
received. The American graduate students were open, showed interest in learning about Somali
culture, and were willing to learn from and listen to the children. Rather than imposing their own
ideas on the Somali children, they helped the children express their own ideas and attempted to
learn their concepts of peace. Moreover, a majority of the decisions in the mural-making process
regarding content and design were made democratically and collectively among the adults and
the children. In fact, the children were the driving force behind many actions.
The graduate students said that both they and the children helped one another understand,
investigate, and determine their own perspectives, frames of reference, and cultural awareness.
They added that it was a very egalitarian creative process and that this type of cooperation helped
them value the children’s ideas more. This equal partnership was recognized by the children,
too, as they referred to their adult partners as “helpers”—not teachers. One child said that the
graduate students “helped me to paint,” another commented, “We all worked together on the
mural,” and another said, “It is our mural.” Such collaboration contributed to establishing equal
ownership of the mural by the children and the adults. The collaborative attitude of the graduate
students in conjunction with collective decision making in the mural-making process moved
the built relationships further to form more solidified connections generating mutual trust and
mutual respect (see Table 1). These indicators of social capital suggest that diminished hierarchy
 HOW THE ARTS GENERATE SOCIAL CAPITAL 11

strengthened the ties between the two groups and avoided an imbalance of power that could have
separated the two groups.
The relationships and connections built during the GPMP ultimately resulted in a bridged-
bonded social group as the project promoted unity among the participants from the two groups
(see Table 1). Having a common goal in the mural, and accomplishing it through cooperation,
fostered personal, close, and nonhierarchical relationships that created an overall sense of unified
community. One graduate student remarked:
It is amazing that in just one week we have formed our own small community and learned to work with
and amongst extremely diverse backgrounds. We have learned to work through language barriers,
cultural influences, gender differences, and age disparities and have come nearly to the end of the
goal we set out to accomplish.
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On the final day of celebration, I witnessed through visual and discursive markers how the two
groups had integrated into one community. The mural operated as a collective artistic expression
of accomplishment and cooperative triumph that strengthened this newly formed community.
One graduate student noted that “the project created a feeling of togetherness.” Similarly, many
Somali children used the communal term “we” repeatedly in their interviews, explaining that “we
created a mural together” or “it is our mural,” which reflects the children’s acknowledgement of
an integrated community. Clearly such sentiments demonstrate that what had been two groups
became a singular whole whose members felt they experienced a sense of oneness, solidarity,
and cohesion (see Table 1).

DIFFERENTIAL IMPACTS

The American graduate students have a broadened sense of community as a result of taking
part in the GPMP and now acknowledge and accept the diversity of ethnic groups represented
in Columbus. All graduate students from the post-project survey reported that they consider the
Somali to be members of the Columbus community (see Appendix A, question 15). Through
the project the graduate students came to understand that their sense of the Columbus com-
munity had been limited prior to the GPMP. With exposure to new groups living in Columbus
the graduate students began to realize the ethnic diversity that defines their shared city. One
graduate student was moved to work with Bhutanese refugees relocating to the Columbus area
as a response to the GPMP. Despite this expanded sense of Columbus community, the graduate
students still identified language differences, Islamophobia and the association of Muslims with
terrorism, misunderstanding, miscommunication, socioeconomic status, racism (racial discrimi-
nation), ignorance, stereotypes of the Somali community, and lack of understanding about Somali
culture as barriers that continue to hinder inclusion of the Somali community within Columbus
(see Appendix A, question 16).
One year after the completion of the project, a follow-up question was sent to the American
graduate students asking them about further engagement with the Somali community in Columbus
following the project’s conclusion (see Appendix B). Four (50 percent) out of eight students who
responded reported that they had engaged with the Somali community after completing the GPMP.
The most common examples included visiting Global Mall (a Somali shopping center that sells
Somali outfits, perfume, jewelry, tea, and snacks on the north side of Columbus and houses the
SWCA) and interacting more with the Somali students in their classes.
 12 LEE

An art teacher said that she had become more aware of and better understood cultural dif-
ferences between herself and her Somali students as a result of the GPMP. Another art teacher
reported that she made personal connections with Somali students in and outside of class and vis-
ited Somali students’ homes to meet their families and learn more about them. A graduate student
in music education held a world percussion class for Somali children at the SWCA following her
involvement in the GPMP.
The results of the survey demonstrate that the American graduate students who participated
in this project better understand and engage with the Somali community. They have an im-
proved understanding of and relationship with the Somali community in work settings, especially
schoolteachers with Somali children in class, and they have an increased awareness of social is-
sues in the Somali community in Columbus. In addition, the Somali children who participated in
this project feel a sense of belonging and involvement. The children feel reduced social isolation
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or exclusion and are able to extend their social circles beyond their own cultural community.
Both groups feel more socially integrated with each other. These impacts represent perceptions
of the project participants but, when examined with the conceptual lens of social capital, these
perceptions take on additional meaning.

GENERATION OF A UNIQUE TYPE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL:

BRIDGED BONDING

To interpret the relational aspect of outcomes and impacts reported by project participants, I use
Robert D. Putnam’s social capital theory, especially the concepts of bonding and bridging social
capital, two types of social capital articulated by him. “Social capital” refers to “connections
among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise
from them” (Putnam 2000, 19). The core idea of social capital theory is that social networks have
value like physical capital or human capital, and the productivity of individuals and groups is
influenced by social contacts, because norms and trust stemming from social networks facilitate
coordination and cooperation for mutual benefits.
Putnam (2000) further distinguished two forms of social capital: bonding (or exclusive) social
capital and bridging (or inclusive) social capital. According to Putnam, bonding is “inward
looking and tend[s] to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups” and is engendered
when a homogeneous group is closely tied (Putnam 2000, 22). Conversely, bridging social capital
is “outward looking and encompass[es] people across diverse social cleavages” and is generated
when two disparate groups relate well to each other (Putnam 2000, 22). Consequently, bonding
social capital can result in social and psychological support for those inside the group, offering
increased reciprocity and solidarity, whereas bridging social capital enables people to connect to
social worlds and resources outside of their inner circles (Putnam 2000).
Bonding social capital holds value in that it increases the intensity of connections, whereas
bridging social capital expands the breadth of networks. However, Putnam (2000) added a
caveat in this distinction—bonding and bridging are not mutually exclusive and both can occur
simultaneously in some groups. For instance, a black church can bond people of the same race and
religion and bridge across class lines. Putnam stated that “bonding and bridging are not ‘either–or’
categories into which social networks can be neatly divided, but ‘more or less’ dimensions along
which we can compare different forms of social capital” (Putnam 2000, 23).
 HOW THE ARTS GENERATE SOCIAL CAPITAL 13

TABLE 2
Survey Result: Personal and Communal Gains of the GPMP

Rank Personal and Communal Gains of the Project

1 Increased understanding of Somali people

and Somali culture (10)
1 Mutual respect (10)
3 Tolerance of difference (9)
4 Friendship (8)
4 Mutual trust (8)
6 Empathy (6)
6 A sense of oneness (6)
8 Solidarity (3)
8 Cohesion (3)
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A list of nine indicators and applications of social capital was given to American graduate
students, who were asked to choose all that applied to the personal and communal gains they could
identify in the project (see Appendix A, question 20). Table 2 demonstrates how the nine indicators
and applications of social capital were rank ordered. The number following each indicator or
application represents the frequency with which the participants identified each indicator or
application of social capital as the personal and communal gains resulting from the project.
Involving two different ethnic or cultural groups and promoting interactions and connections
between them through mural making generated bridging social capital. Bridging capital enabled
each group to be connected to their counterpart’s social world by looking outward and stepping
outside of their inner circles as identified by Putnam (2000). Thus, each group’s breadth of
networks expanded. Increased understanding of Somali people and Somali culture and tolerance
of difference are the indicators of bridging social capital and are produced primarily at the
exposure and learning level of the project outcome (see Table 1).
Over the course of the project I also found that bonding occurred alongside bridging, as
Putnam (2000) suggested could happen within a group. However, the bonding engendered in
the GPMP deviates, to some extent, from Putnam’s definitions. As the project moved from
generating outcomes of exposure and understanding to more relational outcomes, social capital
indicators such as friendship, empathy, mutual trust, and mutual respect were generated, which
implied that relationships between the two groups were not only bridged, linked, or connected
but also deepened and bonded. Unique bonds across two disparate groups were produced here
that were not formed by a homogeneous group and did not function to exclude another group, in
contradiction to Putnam’s (2000) definitions. Instead, two heterogeneous groups integrated and
produced these bonds.
Putnam’s (2000) definitions prove insufficient for addressing all of the kinds of social capital
generated in the mural-making project. A new concept of social capital is necessary to describe
the strong ties that the GPMP created across the groups that went beyond understanding each
other and bridging their differences. I argue that what was generated in the project is a different
kind of social capital: bridged-bonding social capital, which works to both bridge the differences
between the two groups and bond the two groups into one.
 14 LEE

I developed the term bridged-bonding social capital by referencing the idea of bonded bridg-
ing attributed by Moriarty (2004). In her report, Immigrant Participatory Arts: An Insight
Into Community-Building in Silicon Valley, Moriarty (2004) proposed a new bonded-bridging
paradigm for building immigrant social capital. She observed community arts practices in Silicon
Valley immigrant communities and recognized that those practices generated bonded bridging
as they fortified preexisting cultural and ethnic identity. These community arts practices were
culture-based and embedded in an identified tradition, but their community participants were still
open to welcoming newcomers. In other words, bonding within an ethnic group is sought by
participants, whereas bridging occurs with other ethnic groups.
The outcomes of the GPMP were different from the outcomes of immigrant community arts
practices—bonded bridging—because bonding within individual groups (within the American
group or the Somali group) was not significant in this project, because no explicit ethnic content
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was included in the project, nor did the project aim to reinforce the exclusive identity of each
group. The focus of the GPMP was more on bridging the two groups, not bonding individual
groups, and bonding developed as an outgrowth of group integration.
In addition to questioning Putnam’s (2000) kinds of social capital and identifying a new kind
of social capital—bridged bonding—in the project, I further discerned the application of social
capital. Social capital created during the project was applied to bridge the differences between the
American and Somali groups and integrate the two groups into a bridged-bonded group. In other
words, group relations in the project were changed. Because bridged-bonding social capital is
applied to create one integrated whole, each subgroup’s network is broadened and the connection
between members of a new bridged-bonded group is strengthened, producing reciprocity and
unity in the new group. The emergence of this newly integrated group and relational changes
in the group are the result of the change induced by the application of bridged-bonding social
capital generated in the project. The sense of oneness, solidarity, and cohesion are applications
of social capital and changes induced that were recognized by the participants (see Table 2).
In conclusion, bridged-bonding social capital is important in realizing the cohesiveness of
a multicultural community. Bridged bonding can be applied to promote the integration of two
groups as demonstrated in the project, whereas bridging social capital begets only coexistence. If
bridging social capital simply links heterogeneous groups, bridged-bonding social capital can
be mobilized to build a cohesive community. In other words, it not only bridges two groups but
functions as social glue for a cohesive community, increasing in-group loyalty. Another significant
benefit of bridged-bonding social capital lies in its freedom from negative manifestations of
bonding social capital—which may involve sectarianism or ethnocentrism—because it both
encompasses different groups and increases the cohesiveness of an integrated community.

CONCLUSION

The case study of the GPMP operationalizes the characteristics of the kinds of activities in
participatory arts that can promote the social cohesion of a multicultural community through the
generation of social capital: the use of participatory and collaborative arts, high-level interactions
and authentic personal interactions, and nonhierarchical relationships or equal partnerships in an
informal setting. These key characteristics of the GPMP yielded three categories of outcomes:
exposure and understanding, relationships, and solidified connections. As the outcomes proceeded
from the cultural exposure and learning of participants to the building and strengthening of
 HOW THE ARTS GENERATE SOCIAL CAPITAL 15

relationships among them, the bridging social capital primarily produced in the beginning mixed
with more unique bonding social capital across the groups. Most importantly, the project has
produced new insights into how the arts generate and apply a new kind of social capital, bridged
bonding, to foster a new set of social relationships that both bridged the differences between the
American and Somali groups and bonded the two groups into one integrated whole. This social
capital is beneficial in that it can be applied as social glue to create a cohesive community by
integrating people from two (or more) cultures or ethnic groups.
With the concept of bridged-bonding social capital, this study provides evidence of the positive
impact of participatory community arts on promoting the social cohesion of a diverse commu-
nity. However, this concept needs to be further tested in terms of whether it is specific to this
particular case or can be generalized to other community-based participatory arts involving dif-
ferent ethnic and cultural groups. Additionally, a number of related issues are recommended for
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further research: extensive study on the relevance of various activities in participatory arts to
generate bridged-bonding social capital through additional case studies, greater examination of
how bridged-bonding social capital compared to bridging or bonding social capital can contribute
to building a cohesive multicultural community, and a longitudinal study of the consequence of
bridged-bonding social capital on the social dimension of community development. This study
explored a case that included two different ethnic/cultural groups in the same country; how-
ever, the study may also have implications for how international arts exchanges that involve
different cultural groups and different countries can generate and apply social capital, especially
bridged-bonding social capital, to advance interrelationships and mutual understanding.

NOTES

1. I adopt this term from one of my research participants’ description of the GPMP in the interview. I have
decided that this is a good way to refer to one of the key characteristics of the GPMP. I put it in quotation
marks here to acknowledge that attribution. Hereafter, it will simply be a term of reference in the article.
2. In 2010, I interviewed 4 American graduate students, 15 Somali children, and 2 volunteers from the
Somali Women and Children’s Alliance, and collected 117 online postings of American graduate student
reflections on the project, all of whom were promised anonymity. Any references in quotations that come
from these interviews and online postings reflect general comments that are emblematic of commonly
held perceptions or attitudes from the project. Therefore, no attributions to individuals are made.

REFERENCES

Kids’ Guernica. 2009. “Concept.” Accessed December 6, 2012. http://kids-guernica.blogspot.com/2009/08/concept.html.

Matarasso, François. 1997. Use or Ornament?: The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts. Stroud, UK: Comedia.
Mattern, Mark. 2001. “Art and Community Development in Santa Ana, California: The Promise and the Reality.” Journal
of Arts Management, Law & Society 30 (4): 301–15.
Moriarty, Pia. 2004. Immigrant Participatory Arts: An Insight into Community-Building in Silicon Valley. San Jose, CA:
Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley.
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon &
Schuster.
Wali, Alaka, Rebecca Severson, and Mario Longoni. 2002. Research Report to the Chicago Center for Arts Policy at
Columbia College: Informal Arts: Finding Cohesion, Capacity and Other Cultural Benefits in Unexpected Places.
Chicago: Chicago Center for Arts Policy.
 16 LEE

APPENDIX A

SURVEY OF THE GUERNICA PEACE MURAL PROJECT

1. What is your major?

2. What is your occupation?
(a) If you are a teacher, please indicate what grade you teach and your total number of years of
teaching experience.
3. What was your motivation for taking this class?
4. Was this your first time engaging with Somali children?
(a) If no, please specify when and where you worked with Somali children before.
5. How was this project different from your previous experience with Somali children?
6. How would you rate your interaction level with Somali children in the project? (1 = Very high;
2 = quite high; 3 = neither high nor low; 4 = quite low; 5 = very low)
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7. How old is your Somali partner?

8. Does he or she speak in English? What other languages does he or she speak?
9. Were there barriers in your interaction with your Somali partner or the Somali children’s group?
Please describe.
10. What was your interest level in Somali people, Somali culture, and the issues of the Somali
community in Columbus, Ohio, before you participated in the mural project? (1 = Very high; 2 =
quite high; 3 = neither high nor low; 4 = quite low; 5 = very low)
11. What is your interest level in Somali people, Somali culture, and issues of the Somali community
in Columbus, Ohio, now after the completion of the mural project? (1 = Very high; 2 = quite
high; 3 = neither high nor low; 4 = quite low; 5 = very low)
(a) How did this change happen?
12. How has this mural-making experience with Somali children changed your perception or attitude
toward the Somali community in Columbus, Ohio?
13. After participating in the mural project, did you become more interested in engaging more with
the Somali community? (e.g., visit the Global Mall or volunteer in programs for Somali children)
14. In what way(s) has this experience affected or will affect your work?
15. Did you consider Somali people as a part of your community? Do you now? Why or why not?
16. Do you think there are barriers that hinder inclusion of the Somali community in the Columbus
community? If so, what are those barriers?
17. How much has your understanding of Somali people and Somali culture increased? (1 = Signifi-
cantly increased; 2 = moderately increased; 3 = not increasead)
(a) Please specify anything new you have learned
18. How do you think this collaborative mural-making experience worked to help build a relationship
between the two groups, OSU graduate students and Somali children?
19. What role did the mural making play in the learning process?
20. What do you think are the personal and communal gains of the project? (Please circle all that
apply)
(a) Mutual trust
(b) Increased understanding of Somali people and Somali culture
(c) A sense of oneness
(d) Friendship
(e) Mutual respect
(f) Tolerance of differences
(g) Solidarity
(h) Cohesion
(i) Empathy
(j) Others
 HOW THE ARTS GENERATE SOCIAL CAPITAL 17

APPENDIX B

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION FOR FURTHER ENGAGEMENT

WITH THE SOMALI COMMUNITY

Q: Over the last year since the completion of the project, have you made any efforts to engage with
the Somali community?
If yes, please list all of the activities in which you engaged and specify what you did. Examples can
include (but are not limited to) visiting Global Mall, visiting any other Somali business, attending any
Somali cultural or social event, having conversations with or getting closer to the Somali neighborhood,
volunteering in the Somali community, or exploring more opportunities to engage with Somali people in
your work setting (e.g., paying more attention to Somali students in your classes).
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