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POWER AND EMPOWERMENT
Lesotho Class 6th March 2015
Overview
Exploring power Activity 1 Why are we looking at power and
empowerment? Exploring power What is power? Ways of Understanding Power Power Analysis Empowerment
Powerful People I Know
Exploring Power: Activity 1
Activity 1: Part 1
Work alone. Draw up a list of six powerful people.
3 people you know. 3 in public life. Look at your list of six people. Why is that person powerful? From what source or sources does the person
get their power? Who or what do they have power over? Do you see their power as something
positive or negative?
Activity 1: Part 2
In groups Share your answers Did some people have power from more than
one source? Are there sources of power which seem to be
frequently combined? On one large piece of paper write down a list
of “sources of power” and note any sources of power which frequently combine
Report back to group
Activity 1: Part 3
Reflect on your own. Think about which sources you yourself get power from? Share this if you wish.
Large group discussion on what you have learned about power in this exercise.
Did anything challenge you? Did anything surprise you?
Some sources of power
Nationality Education Religion Sexual orientation Job, profession, trade Family status Ownership of house, business, land Physical status Age Resilience
Some sources of power
Health Access to transport, technology, arts, sport,
recreation Control Money and wealth Knowledge and information Might and force Abuse Capacity to inspire fear Capacity to inspire passion
And where can we start?
Why are we looking at power and empowerment?
They are core concepts in Community work
As community workers you want people you work with to be able to have decision-making power over their lives and communities and you want to transfer decision-making power from influencial sectors to more vulnerable communities and individuals who have traditionally been excluded from decision making power.
A practitioner needs to…
Understand the different ways power is denied to communities and the potential of communities to generate their own forms of power and to shape the way power operates
You need to understand structures and processes of power
It is only by engaging with structures and processes of social, political and economic power that communities can work to confront disadvantage, exclusion and oppression whether it be lack of access to health services, to politics, to adequate social services, personal insecurity, to work or education etc
1. Personal power2. Frameworks for understanding power
• Power as a contested concept - introduction• Alternative forms of power• Public, Private and Intimate power• Visible, Hidden and Invisible Power = Three Faces of
Power
Exploring Power
Activity: What Power Do I Have?
Look at “sources of power” above Do you have any of these sources of power? What privileges do you have? What are the advantages and disadvantages of
this position? How powerful do you see yourself in society? Take one source of power you have and think
about how you can use it most effectively Share what you want of this
Power as a contested concept There is a lot of debate about power There are many different ways of seeing
and explaining power, and processes of empowerment
The best approach is to look at different frameworks as a way “in” to understanding power
Framework 1: Forms of Power Source: VeneKlasen and Miller (2002, Chapter 3) and
Rowlands (1995) A dominant view of power is the notion of “power over”,
where one person or group of people dominates or controls another. This is often viewed in negative terms, and with power as a limited resource. But there are other views that see power as a necessary force for change, as positive.
• “power to” – individual ability to act, linked to idea of capability• “power with” – collective action, the ability to act together• “power within” – individual or collective self-worth and dignity
Framework 1 is about agency Notice that these are all views of power
as a kind of “agency”, something that people hold and use in relation to each other.
Power Over
Win-lose Repression Force Coercion Discrimination Corruption Abuse
Power With
Finding common ground among different interests and building collective strength
Mutual support, solidarity and collaboration
Building bridges An organisation seeking power “with”
might look for allies and build coalitions
Power To
The unique potential of each person to shape their own lives and the world.
The idea is “each individual has the power to make a difference”
Power within
Your sense of self-worth and self-knowledge
Recognising individual differences while respecting others
Framework 2: Levels of Power Household Local National International
Levels are Interrelated
Rather than being separate spheres, the local, national and global are increasingly interrelated. Local forms and manifestations of power are constantly being shaped in relationship to global actors and forces, and in turn, local action affects and shapes global power.
Framework 3: Public, Private and Intimate realms of power
Source: VeneKlasen and Miller (2002, Chapter 3)
Gender theory adds another perspective for understanding different levels and expressions of power which are applicable to women as well as men. It critiques the focus on visible power as the place where all politics takes shape.
Public, Private Intimate
• “public” realm of power (visible, employment, public life, relationships)
• “private” realm of power (family, relationships, friends, marriage)
• “intimate” realm of power (self-esteem, self-confidence, relationship to body, sense of physical or emotional autonomy in relation to others)
Public Private Intimate
The public realm of power refers to the visible face of power as it affects women
The private realm of power refers to relationships and roles in families, among friends, sexual partnerships, marriage, etc.
The intimate realm of power has to do with one’s sense of self, personal confidence, psychology and relationship to body and health. For an individual woman, the experience of power and powerlessness will be different, based on race, class or age, and may even be contradictory in different realms of her life.
Framework 4: Spaces of Power
Power is acted out in different spaces • Closed: decisions made by closed groups • Invited: people asked to participate but
within set boundaries • Created: less powerful actors claim a
space where they can set their own agenda
Framework 5: Forms of Power Power takes different forms
Three Faces of Power
• Visible: observable decision-making mechanisms
• Hidden: shaping or influencing the political agenda behind the scenes
• Invisible: norms and beliefs, socialisation, ideology
Visible Power: Example
A management committee in acommunity development organisation
Visible Power
See: http://www.powercube.net/analyse-power/forms-of-power/visible-power/
Visible forms of power are contests over interests which are visible in public spaces or formal decision making bodies. Often these refer to political bodies, such as the Dail, local government.
However, they can also apply to the decision-making bodies of organizations and even of social movements or other spaces for collective action.
Visible Power: Assumption 1
The assumption in this approach is that access to these decision-making arenas by relatively powerless groups is relatively open.
Those with grievances are able to articulate them in the formal decision-making processes and participate fully in the deliberations within them.
Organizational and decision-making structures are considered accessible by all, so we can understand power but looking only at what occurs within them.
Assumption 2
A second assumption is that by seeing who participates, who wins and who loses in these arenas, you can tell who has power. For instance, we can analyse which interests are able to maintain debate, whose interests prevail in key decisions, such as on a key policy or budget decision, and whose voices and interests are present, but have little influence. Little attention is paid in this approach to whose voices are not represented and why.
Assumption 3
Visible power assumes that decision-making arenas are neutral playing fields, in which any players who have issues to raise may engage freely. It also assumes that actors are conscious and aware of their grievances and have the resources, organization and agency to make their voice heard.
But not everyone gets to the decision making table
But there are many ways in which certain actors are kept from getting to the decision-making table and certain issues are kept off of the agenda. These are referred to as hidden power and invisible power.
Empowerment Strategies to address visible power
Visible power – Strategies to challenge visible power often involve forms of lobbying, public advocacy, and mobilization to affect what decisions are made, be they on policies, budgets, rules or procedures.
Similar strategies are used inside organizations to articulate voices through the ‘official’ decision making channels.
Hidden Power
Hidden forms of power are used by vested interests to maintain their power and privilege by creating barriers to participation, by excluding key issues from the public arena, or by controlling politics ‘backstage’. They may occur not only within political processes, but in organizational and other group contexts as well, such as workplaces, NGOs or community-based organizations.
Hidden Power
Through hidden forms of power, alternative choices are limited, less powerful people and their concerns are excluded, and the rules of the game are set to be biased against certain people and issues.
This is done by dominant rules and procedures, the framing of issues in a way that devalues them, the uses or threat of sanctions, and the discrediting of the legitimacy of actors who are challenging the status quo.
Empowerment Strategies: Hidden Power
Strategies which address this form of power focus on strengthening people’s voices and capacities to speak out, mobilizing and organizing to overcome the barriers to participation, using research and media to challenge how issues are framed. Often when we talk about hidden power, we talk about how people affected negatively by power may challenge it, to make their voices more visible.
Hidden Power
For instance, just changing the rules about who is allowed to speak in a public meeting can bring new voices or issues to the table.
But hidden forms of power also can involve more hidden forms of action as well, in which people resist domination and control through less public ways.
Invisible Power
This involves the ways in which awareness of one’s rights and interests are hidden through the adoption of dominating ideologies, values and forms of behaviour by relatively powerless groups themselves.
Invisible Power
Sometimes this is also referred to as the ‘internalization of powerlessness’ in a way that affects the awareness and consciousness of potential issues and conflicts, even by those directly affected.
Invisible Power
In this form of power, people may be unaware of their rights, their ability to speak out, and may come to see various forms of power or domination over them as ‘natural’, or at least unchangeable, and therefore unquestioned.
Invisible Power
Marginalised people, for instance, may accept their circumstance as the status quo even in the face of inequalities around them, internalizing dominant explanations of poverty that tell them poverty is ‘their fault’ rather than a systemic problem. Paulo Freire referred to this as the ‘culture of silence’, resulting from the internalization of oppression.
Empowerment Strategies: Invisible Power
Strategies for challenging invisible power involve approaches like awareness raising, adult education, participatory research to validate peoples’ own knowledge, uses of the media and popular communication methods to challenge dominant stereotypes and discourses, changes in approaches to schooling and socialization, as well as many others.
Formal/ institutional
InvitedClaimed/ Created
SPACESGaventa, 2004)
PLACES
Global
National
Local
POWER
Visible
InvisibleHidden
The Power Cube
Reading
Website of the powercube has a lot of resources, workshops, articles, theory on power.http://www.powercube.net/
Particularly good resource athttp://www.powercube.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/newweave_chapter3.pdf
NB on the Three Faces of Powerhttp://www.powercube.net/analyse-power/forms-of-power/
NB on the Three Faces of Power: Empowerment Strategies to address the Three Faces of Power
http://www.powercube.net/strategize-and-act/strategies-and-forms-of-power/
This also talks about the power cube
What Next for Power Analysis? A Review of Recent Experience with the Powercube and Related Frameworks
http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/Wp400.pdf
Maro Pantazidou August 2012
Assignment
Deadline 13th March Think about one group you work with or
wish to work with to support them to develop as a community
Carry out a short power analysis of this group
Write a short paragraph on each of the following questions
Assignment: Power Analysis
Some key questions to ask
1. WHO? Who is trying to be heard? Whose voice is trying to be heard? Who is directly helping
these voices to be heard? With indirect support from whom? To be heard by whom?
2. WHERE? Context, Levels, Spaces In what context? At what levels are voices trying to be
heard? In what kinds of “spaces” are voices trying to be heard? (e.g. formal/closed, invited, created/claimed from below)
Assignment: Power Analysis
3. WHAT? Sectors, Issues, Power Which aspects of poverty and marginalisation are being
addressed? What change is your organisation trying to affect? Which kinds of power relations are relevant to the right to be heard? (e.g. visible, hidden, invisible/internalised). What are the gender dimensions of these power relations?
4. HOW? Strategies, Methods, Models What strategic approaches are used for responding to the
above? What is the logic behind the choice of partners, allies and actors?
