POWER AND
EMPOWERMENT
Lesotho Class 6th March 2015
Overview
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Exploring power Activity 1
Why are we looking at power and empowerment?
Exploring power
What is power?
Ways of Understanding Power
Power Analysis
Empowerment
Exploring Power: Activity 1
Powerful People I Know
Activity 1: Part 1
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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
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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
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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
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Nationality
Education
Religion
Sexual orientation
Job, profession, trade
Family status
Ownership of house, business, land
Physical status
Age
Resilience
Some sources of power
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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
Why are we looking at power and
empowerment?
And where can we start?
They are core concepts in Community
work
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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…
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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
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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
Exploring Power
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Personal power
Frameworks for understanding power
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Power as a contested concept - introduction
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Alternative forms of power
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Public, Private and Intimate power
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Visible, Hidden and Invisible Power = Three Faces of Power
Activity: What Power Do I Have?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Win-lose
Repression
Force
Coercion
Discrimination
Corruption
Abuse
Power With
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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
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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
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Your sense of self-worth and self-knowledge
Recognising individual differences while respecting
others
Framework 2: Levels of Power
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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, selfconfidence, relationship to body, sense of physical
or emotional autonomy in relation to others)
Public Private Intimate
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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
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Framework 5: Forms of Power
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Power takes different forms
Three Faces of Power
observable decision-making
mechanisms
 • Hidden: shaping or influencing the
political agenda behind the scenes
 • Invisible: norms and beliefs, socialisation,
ideology
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• Visible:
Visible Power: Example
A management committee in a
community development organisation
Visible Power
See: http://www.powercube.net/analysepower/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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
The Power Cube
PLACES
POWER
Global
National
Local
Invisible
Hidden
Visible
Formal/
Invited Claimed/
institutional
Created
SPACES
Gaventa, 2004)
Reading
Website of the powercube has a lot of resources,
workshops, articles, theory on power.
http://www.powercube.net/
Particularly good resource at
http://www.powercube.net/wpcontent/uploads/2009/11/newweave_chapter3.pdf
NB on the Three Faces of Power
http://www.powercube.net/analyse-power/formsof-power/
NB on the Three Faces of Power: Empowerment
Strategies to address the Three Faces of Power
http://www.powercube.net/strategize-andact/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
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Assignment
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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
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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
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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
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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
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What strategic approaches are used for responding to the above? What is
the logic behind the choice of partners, allies and actors?