Increasing social capital as a means to combat racism and discrimination in European Cities
The Rotterdam Beyond Discrimination project aims to increase understanding of the experiences of discrimination, exclusion, hate crimes and hate speech, and racism and the impact of those experiences of people in Rotterdam from the Jewish community1, the Islamic community and the Black community2. With their approach, the initiators, RADAR and the municipality of Rotterdam, wanted to increase the social capital of individuals and communities facing racism and discrimination (Putnam 1993, 1994, 1995). This in order to be able to better represent shared interests, and to open an accessible channel of influence towards administrators and the institutional world in Rotterdam. Connection, sharing experiences, developing experiential knowledge and formulating an approach to action should lead to empowerment of those involved. Finally, the project aimed to develop a transferable methodology to detect, prevent and combat discrimination. This document describes that methodology.
