POWER AND COLLECTIVE ACTION

 Empowerment:

- Perkins (1995): Empowerment is a psychological feeling that individuals have when they believe they can accomplish chosen goals; it is also a political or organizational strength that enables people to carry out their will collectively.

- Empowerment occurs when ordinary people discover that they have the capacity to solve the problems they face, control the means to do so, and have final, authoritative say in decision-making.

- Empowered individuals are willing and able to assert their collective wills, even when faced with opposition from the established political or economic structure.

- Empowerment is the tool through which ordinary people collectively combat the mobilization of bias.

- This bias comes from a set of structures, including norms, beliefs, rituals, institutions, organizations, and procedures ("rules of the game") that operate systematically to benefit certain groups and persons at the expense of others. As part of growing up in a culture where the rich and business classes dominate, ordinary people often accept these biased rules.

- People accept whatever decisions are made, even when those decisions are harmful to them, without fighting back. Disempowerment occurs because people, often without thinking of their own interests, accept the rules of the game that put others in charge.

-Empowerment occurs:

a)     When those in community and social-change organizations confront the tacit rules that favor the rich, the owners of large businesses, and government agencies.

-       People feel empowered when they recognize that their contribution helps the group succeed. Power comes from solidarity, from membership in a group, where the efforts of individuals are channeled, focused, and effective.

-       People learn they can use collective power to shape outcomes that benefit them, to control their own world, and to escape subordination from others.

-       A feeling of empowerment grows when people who understand that there are collective solutions to their problems begin to fight back and take some control. For example, residents who patrol their own community to drive out drug hustlers feel empowered. Learning how to fight back and pressure the government and business to respond is empowering.

 

b)    By gaining a material and social stake in society, people gain self-confidence that empowers them. For example, mastering the skills needed for a better job or perhaps owning a new home.

c)     By enabling people to escape from the humiliation they feel when they are put down by others. People feel empowered when they fight back politically to overcome personal oppression, e.g., racism.

d)    People are empowered when they control the environment in which they live. For example, when cars do not speed through residential streets, endangering children, the community is not a marketplace for drugs or prostitution.

-       It also means that the residents of the neighborhood control its resources, own its businesses and homes, and that the money spent by the community does not leave the community, stripping it of resources.

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND SOCIAL CAPITAL

- Community is built on social capital, "the stocks of social trust, norms, and networks that people can draw upon in order to solve common problems".

 - If there is inadequate social capital, it is difficult to build a sense of community.

(Check book attached -  Rubin, H. J. & Rubin, I. S. (2001): Community Organizing and Development. Pearson/Routledge. )

CREATING SOCIAL CAPITAL THROUGH COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

A. Programs:

- Community-based economic development programs can be as much about the process of creating social capital as they are about increasing wealth.

-Microenterprise programs are set up to help poor women establish income-producing firms, but in doing so, they increase the amount of community social capital.

B. Faith-based model:

-Within many communities, churches and mosques are the repository of place-based social capital, uniting people who share core values. Worship members often take on obligations of supporting and helping congregation members.

-Churches from different or similar communities can be more readily linked to one another than can individuals, creating the social bridges that provide resources to communities in need.