Emerald City? The case for situational capital in advancing our understanding of Irish immigrants’ attachment to New York City as place

Abstract

This paper explores the relevance of social capital in shaping Irish immigrants’ reconstructions of their attachment to New York City (NYC) as place. Using extracts from Irish immigrants’ previously unpublished oral histories, I make the case for situational capital, a multi-faceted and dynamic place-based resource which connects people in situ by virtue of their literal and metaphorical positionality. The coalescence of individual and collective memories, including childhood memories, underpinned the network of social relationships which fuelled interviewees’ quest to recreate and reimagine a sense of ‘home’ both in NYC and Ireland. The resultant situational capital created by these relationships fostered a reflexive and sustained attachment to place which served to advance the cumulative economic, cultural, political and social prosperity of Irish men and women individually and collectively over time and space. Situational capital was also instrumental in advancing opportunities for Irish men and women and altering the physical characteristics of neighbourhoods. It shaped the genius loci of NYC as reconstructed by those interviewed pivoting around the fluid and ambiguous notion of real and imagined ‘home.’