Understanding the power in empowerment

by Sarah Lindeire

This blog post was written by Tingathe, one of Azurit Foundation’s grantee partners. The text is based on a speech at the Unicaf University in 2018.

Many use the term empowerment without understanding what it really means. I would like to define and explore empowerment as a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities and in their society, by acting on issues they define as important. We at least at Tingathe see empowerment as a process that challenges our assumptions about the way things are and can be. It challenges our basic assumptions about power, helping, achieving, and succeeding. To begin to demystify the concept of empowerment, we need to understand the concept broadly. At the core of the concept of empowerment is the idea of power. The possibility of empowerment depends on two things.

First, empowerment requires that power can change. If power cannot change, if it is inherent in positions or people, then empowerment is not possible, nor is empowerment conceivable in any meaningful way. In other words, if power can change, then empowerment is possible.

Second, the concept of empowerment depends upon the idea that power can expand. This second point reflects our common experiences of power rather than how we think about power. To clarify these points, we first discuss what we mean by power.

According to Weber (1946), power is often related to our ability to make others do what we want, regardless of their own wishes or interests. Traditional social science emphasizes power as influence and control, often treating power as a commodity or structure divorced from human action (Lips 1991). When conceived in this way, power can be viewed as unchanging or unchangeable. Weber (1946) gives us a key word beyond this limitation by recognizing that power exists within the context of a relationship between people or things. Power does not exist in isolation nor is it inherent in individuals. By implication, since power is created in relationships, power and power relationships can change. Empowerment as a process of change, this an only then, does this become a meaningful concept.

A brief exercise makes the importance of this discussion clear. Quickly, list three words that immediately come to mind when you hear the word power. For most people, words that come to mind when we think about power often revolve around control and domination. Focusing on these aspects of power limit our ability to understand and define empowerment.

The concept of empowerment also depends upon power that can expand, our second stated requirement. Understanding power as zero-sum, as something that you get at my expense, cuts most of us off from power. A zero-sum conception of power means that power will remain in the hands of the powerful unless they give it up. Although this is certainly one way that power is experienced, it neglects the way power is experienced in most interactions.

Another brief exercise highlights the importance of a definition of power that includes expansion. Answer the question: “Have you ever felt powerful?” Was it at someone’s expense? Was it with someone else? Contemporary research on power has opened new perspectives that reflect aspects of power that are not zero-sum, but are shared. Researchers and practitioners call this aspect of power “relational power”. Gaining power actually strengthens the power of others rather than diminishing it such as it occurs with domination/power. Kreisberg has suggested that power is defined as “the capacity to implement”. It is this definition of power, as a process that occurs in relationships, that gives us the possibility of empowerment.

As a general definition, we at Tingathe however, we suggest that empowerment is a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power (that is, the capacity to implement) in people, for use in their own lives, their communities, and in their society, by acting on issues that they define as important. We suggest that three components are basic to any understanding of empowerment.

1. Empowerment is multi-dimensional, social, and a process. It is multi-dimensional in that it occurs within sociological, psychological, economic, and other dimensions. Empowerment also occurs at various levels, such as individual, group, and community.
2. Empowerment, by definition, is a social process, since it occurs in relationship to others. Empowerment is a process that is similar to a path or journey, one that develops as we work through it. Other aspects of empowerment may vary according to the specific context and people involved, but these remain constant.
3. In addition, one important implication of this definition of empowerment is that the individual and community are fundamentally connected.

On the interconnection of individuals and community: Wilson (1996) pointed out that more and more researchers, organizers, politicians and employers recognize that individual change is a prerequisite for community and social change and empowerment. This does not mean that we can point the finger at those with less access to power, telling them that they must change to become more like “us” in order to be powerful/successful. Rather, individual change becomes a bridge to community connectedness and social change (Wilson 1996).

To create change we must change individually to enable us to become partners in solving the complex issues facing us. In collaborations based on mutual respect, diverse perspectives, and a developing vision, people work toward creative and realistic solutions. We see this inclusive individual and collective understanding of empowerment as crucial in programs with empowerment as a goal. It is in the critical transition, or interconnection, between the individual and the community.
There are thousands of examples of empowerment strategies that have been initiated by poor people themselves and by governments, civil society, and the private sector. Although there is no single institutional model for empowerment, experience shows that certain elements are almost always present when empowerment efforts are successful. The five key elements of empowerment that must underlie institutional reform are:

1. Access to information
2. Inclusion and participation
3. Accountability
4. Local organizational capacity which largely has to do with access to resources
5. Deliberate and focused cohesion between Government, Private sector and CSO’s

There needs to be deliberate commitment for transformation on an individual level for all of us and in how we collaborate and build ecosystems with the people’s interests rooted at the core. The moral of the story is that we only win if we win together.

References

Lips, Hilary (1991): Women, men, and power, Mayfield Publishing Co.

Weber, Max (1946): Power, in: Essays in sociology, Oxford university press, New York, 159-266.

Wilson, Patricia (1996): Empowerment: Community economic development from the inside out, Urban Studies 33.4-5, 617-630.

About the author

Sarah Lindeire is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Tingathe. Tingathe trains and assists young people and women in entrepreneurship with an empowerment approach addressing confidence building, life skills and sexual health in addition to entrepreneurship in Malawi.

photo credits: Aubrey Lindeire