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© 2020 Cavalieri and Almeida. This article follows the Open
Access policy of CC BY NC under Creative Commons attribution license v
4.0.
Submitted: 18/05/2020 - Accepted: 18/06/2020 - Published: 30/08/2020
Power, Empowerment and Social Participation- the Building
of a Conceptual Model
Irene Corrêa Cavalieri1
Helena Neves Almeida2
1Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Psychology and
Education Sciences and Faculty of Economy, University of Coimbra, Portugal
2Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Email: helena.almeida03@gmail.com
DOI: 10.26417/ejser.v12i1.p189-199
Abstract
Social intervention integrates multidisciplinary and participative concepts
and practices that, in different areas, contribute to social processes of
empowerment, one of the intervention paradigms in contemporary society.
The use of the term empowerment has been recurrent in the fields of
psychological and social intervention and its definition implies the
contribution of various knowledge. This requires the operational
contextualization of its definition. Based on a review of the literature, this
article intends to conceptualize and contextualize empowerment as a
strategic process of intervention. It is structured around three topics that
present the relations of power in contemporary society, as well as the
conceptual process of empowerment and social participation. It produces a
reflexive work combining various theoretical approaches of empowerment
in order to define differente analitycal dimentions of the concept, and to
produce a conceptual model that can be later operacionalized in empirical
research.
Keywords: Power, empowerment, social participation, social intervention, social
work
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Introduction
The term empowerment has been used recurrently in the fields of social intervention,
and its definition entails its extension across various spheres of knowledge, thus
requiring a contextualization of its meaning. It proposes the creation of responsible
communities in which those individuals who constitute the body assume greater
control over their lives and participate democratically in daily life, bearing in mind
the different collective arrangements and their context (Horochovski, 2006).
The concept of empowerment is complex, and one that in recent decades has
shown increasing academic and social relevance in diverse fields of knowledge,
having been incorporated into a wide range of areas, in particular, administration,
economics, public health, psychology, social work, and political sociology. It also
enters the political agenda of many actors and institutions such as governments,
businesses and organizations of civil society, international agencies and development
banks (ibidem, 2006).
A concept which has its roots in the civil rights struggles, the feminist movement, and
the ideology of social action present in developed countries in the second half of
the 20 century in the 1970s, it was shaped as well by the self-help movement, and in
the 1980s, by community psychology. In the 1990s, influence came from those
movements which sought to affirm citizens’ rights in specific spheres of social life and
society (Almeida, 2001; Carvalho, 2004).
As with the majority of emergent themes, empowerment was gradually
transformed, elevated to an intellectual mode and present in the discourse of actors
from political orientations and cultural identities that were at times on unequal
footing. Thus, it may be said that a polysemic and indiscriminate treatment of the
concept occurred, one in which the meaning was left up to the user and depending on
any given intention or position on the political-ideological spectrum (Horochovski,
2006).
The understanding of the object of study, in addition to its value for the production of
knowledge, seeks to contribute to social transformation since a more profound grasp
of the concept can represent an attempt to deal with the inherent complexity of
empowerment in social contexts. Empowerment, more than a self-legitimized
buzzword, may well be considered an operational tool for monitoring social
interventions and the resulting transformation, thus contributing to the
effectiveness of practices and the underpinnings of an actual theory of social change.
(Albuquerque, Santos & Almeida, 2016).
The present article is structured in two parts. The first part takes up the relationships
of power in societies, and the second provides a theoretical contextualization for
empowerment as a strategic process of social intervention.
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This study shows that the processes of empowerment are both complex and
interdependent and that participatory methodologies are essential for intervention
processes which propose the redistribution of power in societies.
Power in societies
“Power is a key concept for an understanding of processes of empowerment”. (Sadan,
2004)
Within the realm of social relationships, what is present are self-perceptions,
identities, and the meanings given to the world and to things in and of themselves. In
the same way, power is also inter-subjective, which always implies an interaction and
an interdependence amongst those individuals who are more or less powerful
(Bourdieu, 2001 apud Pinto, 2011). This conception of power plays a decisive role in
terms of social intervention as it is from this perspective that the less powerful are
not deprived of power and are indeed invested with power, which must in turn be
mobilized. It is also from the perspective of reducing vulnerability and increasing
power – meaning individuals and groups can make decisions for
themselvesandpromote actionsand stress the achievement of results – that we
address the concepts and the relationships of power in societies, cognizant that in
order to empower (or give power to) people and/or groups it is particularly vital
that the uneven distribution of power in society be recognized.
The English word ‘empowerment’ is derived from the root notion of ‘power’ and when
we use this word, (obtaining, expanding or consolidating power) the concept in play
is indeed the conceptual instrument of power (Pinto, 2011).
The definition of ‘power’ according to the Portuguese Dicionário Aurélio also refers to
the synonyms of “possibility” and “ability”. Physical force, strength of body or soul;
empire, sovereignty, force or influence; possession, jurisdiction, domain, attribution;
state government; importance, consideration; large quantities, abundance;
military force; efficiency, effect, virtue; capacity to do something; mandate, proxy;
means, resources; being able to do something; being subject to something; having
physical strength to do something; have reasons to do something; capacity to do
something (dicionariodoaurelio.com, 2017) with these being some of the many
definitions of a simple word, a simple construct, and a polysemic concept of interest
to many fields of knowledge.
Norberto Bobbio, a philosopher dedicated to the theme, comments in his book
“Estado, Poder e Sociedade” (“State, Power and Society”) (1985) that in political
philosophy, the problem of power is presented as having three aspects, on the
basis of which three fundamental theories can be distinguished: the substantialist,
the subjectivist, and the relational (Bobbio, 2007).
According to substantialist theories, power is seen as a “thing” which can be
possessed and used the same as any other type of property, be it a natural talent (such
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as strength and intelligence, for example) or something acquired (as in wealth), and
which can be employed to achieve whatever may represent the object of one’s desire
(Bobbio, 2007). For Hobbes (1651 apud Bobbio, 2007), “the power of a man (…) is his
present means to obtain some future apparent good” [1651, trad. it. p. 82]. Akin to
this is Bertrand Russell’s definition (1938, apud Bobbio, 2007) according to which
power consists of “the production of intended effects” which may assume three forms:
physical and constrictive power (military power); psychological power (through
threats of punishment or promises of rewards which consist mainly of the economic
domain); mental power (exercised through persuasion or dissuasion, and which
has its elementary form present in all societies in education.)
For Bobbio, the typical subjectivist interpretation of power is represented by
Locke [1694, II, XXI] who maintains that power does not lie in one being the holder
of a “thing” that aids in achieving a certain goal but rather an individual’s competence
in obtaining results. From this comes Locke’s reference to “the power that fire has to
melt lead” and the power that a sovereign has to make laws, and in so doing exercises
control over the conduct of his subjects.
In contemporary political discourse, according to the same author, the most accepted
interpretation concerns the relational concept of power, which puts forth that power
should be understood as a relationship between two subjects in which the first
party secures from the second a behavior that in “normal” circumstances [the absence
of power] would not be obtained. The most well-known and also the most synthetic
of definitions of the relational concept belongs to Robert Dahl: “Influence [a broader
concept in which power is included] is a relationship among actors in which one actor
induces other actors to act in some way that they would not otherwise act.” (1963,
trad, it. p. 68, apud Bobbio, 2007). “Marking a relation between two subjects, power
thus defined is closely tied to the concept of freedom; the two concepts can be defined
as a negation of the other: ‘The power held by Person A implies the lack of freedom
for Person B’, or ‘The freedom of Person A implies the non-power of Person B’”
(Bobbio, 2007, p.78)
The writings of Michel Foucault (1979, 1980, 1996) amplify the discussion on the
concept of power, broadening it to include other fields of the social and human
sciences (Sadan, 2004). Foucault underscores a set of methodological rules which
allow for establishing hypotheses that configure an approach and the objective of
research much more than a complete theory (Albuquerque, 1995).
Relationships of power depend on one’s culture, location and time (Sadan,
2004). Foucault expands on the discourse on power in contemporary western society,
explaining its characteristics in the following way:
1. power is not a commodity, nor is it a position, an award or a conspiracy. It is the
activation of political technologies which act in specific spheres of social life as
well as
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2. in everyday life. Power occurs in locations of all types and sizes, including the
smallest and most intimate, such as the human body;
3. relationships of power are unstable, non-egalitarian, and asymmetrical. We
should not expect to find immutable logic in power nor the possibility of
equilibrium in this domain;
4. stepping off from the idea that power is not a thing, nor the control over a set of
institutions, nor is it or does it have a hidden historical pattern, the objective
of the researcher studying power is to discover how it acts. Therefore it becomes
necessary to isolate, identify, and analyze the network of relationships which
creates political technologies. It is important to research the level of micropractices
from which it can be learned how power acts in a social institution on
the most common level of ordinary daily routine;
5. as power is not limited to political institutions, it plays a direct and creative role
in social life. It is multidirectional, acting from top to bottom and from bottom to
top. Although power is at its peak when situated within specific institutions,
caution should be applied when identifying technologies of power in certain
institutions given that power is neither a superstructure nor a quality of an
institution;
6. domination is not the essence of power. Domination exists, but power also acts
on governing bodies and not just the governed;
7. in relationships of power there is intention but no subject. Only on the micro
level and the tactical level does power have intentions. On the strategic level,
which includes the complex of relationships of power, no subject exists. (Sadan,
2004 p.57-59).
However, relationships of power are balanced. Power is integrated into a complex
social practice in which human agency1 has structural qualities, with the social
structure being part of the human activity which creates and assures its own
continuity. This model of duality of structure view social structure and human
agency as two factors that construct and activate social relationships, with power
being an important central component for both (Giddens, 1984 apud Sadan, 2004). It
is human agency which creates social structure, establishing it, consolidating it, and
also transforming it when it acts.
Yet according to Foucault, who did not believe in resistance because it negates the
centrality of an autonomous subject when it has the capacity to influence and change
social relationships, it is power and not human agency that is the central factor that
motivates all other relationships. He did not accept that social change could arise
1
Agency is defined as the ability possessed by an actor or group of actors to make decisions, meaning that the actor
is able to predict and purposely choose options. In terms of the extent or action to increase empowerment, a person
or the agency of a group can be broadly envisaged by the number of social, political, andeconomic
resourcesavailable to the actors for them to be productive and shielded from shocks (Alsop, Bertelsen & Holland,
2006).
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from local efforts; in other words, he did not believe in the human capacity to effect
social change, a belief central to the theory of empowerment (Sadan, 2004).
Thus, according to this author, we can simultaneouslyexplain power in terms of
humanaction and in terms of structure: power is a basic component of human agency,
the absolute lack of power means no longer being a human agent, and power is the
human ability to intervene in events and make a difference. Power is an inseparable
part of social interaction, being an integral feature of social life; it is always part of
relationships and its signs can be understood even at the micro levels of interaction.
Moreover, power is an individual’s capacity to act in a guided and voluntary way to
bring about change.
There are systems of domination and domain, with their respective rules and
resources. To summarize, power is a process in which human agency participates
in each person’s inherent capacity to influence the world around him, alongside
social structure (that appears in the form of structures of domination that
determine the degree to which a person may influence the world). These
relationships existing between human agency and social structure are dynamic and
procedural.
In the words of Zygmunt Bauman (2003) “power consists in decision-making and it
resides with those who make the decisions” (p.40).
Nanette Page and Cheryl Czuba (1999 apud Hur, 2006) affirm that the concept
of empowerment is conceived as an idea of power as it is intimately related to the
change of power – gaining it, using it, diminishing it, and losing it. Recently, power has
been examined as something that is shared as it can afford additional strength when
shared with others (Kreisberg, 1992 apud Hur, 2006). Shared power is defined as a
process that occurs in relations and one that enables empowerment. It is understood
as “a multidimensional social process that helps people to gain control over
their lives” (Page & Czuba, 1999: 25 apud Hur, 2006).
The struggle for individual rights and their propagation have resulted in intense
community-building (Bauman, 2003), such that “the only strategy available for
achieving the premise of a ‘just society’ is the elimination of impediments to the
equitable distribution of opportunities, removing them one by one and as they are
brought to the attention of the public thanks to the articulation, manifestation, and
effort of successive demands for recognition” (Bauman, 2003: 73).
It is in this direction that the processes of empowerment, and their respective levels
and categories, will be presented in order to move along to the examination of
observed practice.
Definitions of empowerment
“The violence of the oppressors, which also makes them dehumanized, establishes no
other vocation than that of being less. As a distortion of being more, being less leads the
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oppressed, sooner or later, to rise up against those who made them less. And this
struggle only makes sense when the oppressed, in striving to recover their humanity,
which is a way of creating it, do not feel themselves idealistically as oppressors and when
they do not in fact become oppressors of the oppressors, rather the restorers of the
humanity of both.” (Freire, 1987)
By the term empowerment what is understood is an intentional and continuous
process, centered on the local community, including mutual respect, critical
reflection, attentiveness and participation through which those people who are
lacking in certain resources can assume greater access to and control over them, or a
process through which people gain control over their lives, participate
democratically in the life of the community, and display critical understanding
of their environment (Perkins & Zimmerman, 1995). Empowerment entails the
construction of responsible communities, ones in which the individuals that comprise
them take on greater control of their lives and contribute in an egalitarian way to daily
life, taking into account the various collective arrangements in place and their context
(Horochovski, 2006).
These are the psychological, informational, organizational, material, social, financial,
and human resources that people call upon in their daily lives (World Bank Institute,
2007).
According to Elisheba Sadan (2004) and Carla Pinto (2011), it was Barbara Simon,
one of the first authors to relate systematically with the concept of empowerment,
who fundamentally influenced the development of its use. This author emphasizes
the important connection between individuals and the community, encouraging an
ecological contextual approach in order to deal with social situations. Solomon (1976,
1985) also stressed empowerment as a method for social work with AfricanAmericans
who suffer as victims of oppression, in which the dynamic process is
underscored in that clients receive assistance as they develop skills that enable them
to improve their life conditions and social position.
Carla Pinto (2011:48-51), in her doctoral thesis, dealt with the concept of
empowerment as a process for intervention in which:
• There is an increase in personal, interpersonal, and political power such
that individuals can act toward the goal of improving their lives;
• There is an increase in control through which individuals, groups, and/or
communities become more able to control their own life circumstances and
to achieve objectives in a way that shows mutual cooperation and help, and
which maximizes quality of life – the multidimensional social process;
• The aim is participation with critical learning and transformation of feelings,
thoughts, and individual actions, as well as the organization of society by
equitably sharing power and resources;
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• The aim is access to resources that are valued and redistributed by society,
given that access to resources is dependent upon the power exercised by the
subjects;
• There is recognition, creation, and utilization of resources and instruments
by the individuals, groups, and communities themselves and in the setting
where they live, which translates into an increase in power (psychological,
sociocultural, political and economic) which allows for increased and more
efficient exercise of citizens’ rights;
• It is transformation – transformation of the relationships of power, which
drives the overcoming of obstacles and the development of potentialities
and which celebrates life by building and working together for change in
social structures;
• It is the manifestation of social power on individual, organizational and
community levels, being both process and result.
Empowerment is therefore an active process. Its form is determined by
circumstances and events, and its essence is human activity that directed toward
the change from a passive state to an active state. The process is one that integrates
self-acceptance and selfconfidence,
social and political understanding, and a personal capacity to assume a
significant role in decision- making and in the control over resources in one’s
environment. The sense of personal capacity is linked to that of civic commitment
(Zimmerman & Rappaport, 1988).
Categories of empowerment
Four categories of empowerment may be identified (Rich, Edelstein, Hallman and
Wandersman, 1995 apud Ornelas, 1997):
i. intrapersonal empowerment which refers to a person’s capacities in a given
situation; some degree of this type of empowerment seems to be an essential
condition for the process of participation in the context of community and may
determine the degree of individual trust for participation in future actions;
ii. instrumental empowerment which refers to the individual capacity to
participate and influence a decision- making process, which may be observed
when there is interaction between factors such as the presentation of
knowledge that is relevant to the question under debate, the material
resources presented, the capacity for argumentation and persuasion, and the
legitimacy in the participation;
iii. formal empowerment which emerges when institutions present mechanisms
that influence public decisions that concern citizens and their social
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institutions, creating new opportunities for citizens to participate in decisionmaking
processes;
iv. substantive empowerment which refers to the capacity to make decisions
and produce the desired results.
Thus, hereditariness and the conditions for growth and care are not only
fundamental for a person’s upbringing but they also represent opportunities and
experiences provided by context which significantly corroborate for the structuring
of an individual’s personality. Of essential importance is a person’s capacity to act and
to make decisions to achieve goals, as this ability, or the lack of it, is responsible for
molding a person’s character and influences the degree to which a person is the
leading player in his/her life (Pinderhughes, 1983 apud Sadan, 2004).
Let us speak now of intrapersonal empowerment: when people have power over their
own lives, or when they have control over their lives and are able to influence others
and bring about change. Although this begins with “me” (self- empowerment), it
cannot be considered as apart from politics or from power; in other words, becoming
empowered signifies allowing other people to feel better but this does not mean that
they will be free from oppression (Adams, 2008 apud Sadan, 2004).
Empowerment is still a process of internal change (a person’s sense or belief in
his/her own capacity to make decisions and resolve his/her own problems) and
external change (finding expression in the capacity to act and to implement practical
knowledge, information, skills, capabilities and other new resources acquired during
the process). It is an interactive process that involves the individual and his/her
environment. The result of instrumental empowerment is capacities based on
insights and abilities whose essential features are critical political awareness,
competences namely with respect to others, and the capacity to cope with frustrations
and struggle for greater influence over the environment (Kieffer, 1984 and Parsons,
1988 apud Sadan, 2004).
The approach to comprehending the concept enjoys little consensus albeit some
agreement exists in terms of internal change, also called psychological
empowerment, and external change, political empowerment. Upholding this
distinction, the former takes place on the level of the person’s awareness and feelings
whereas the latter occurs when the change is real and allows the person to participate
in decision-making that affects his/her life. To achieve psychological empowerment,
an individual only needs inner strength, but political empowerment requires
environmental conditions, mainly of an organizational nature, which allow the person
to exercise new capabilities. (Gruber & Trickett, 1987 apud Sadan, 2004), requiring
that both be integrated since the events occurring in one’s private life is also an
expression of one’s social situation (Lengermann & Niebrugge-Brentley, 1988 apud
Sadan, 2004).
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The process of empowerment requires personal resources, such as the capacity
for relationships – empathy, sensitivity, and openness to communication in terms of
expectations, sharing the desires and interests of others; the capacity to construct and
maintain bonds of friendship, trust and respect in relation to others, the capacity to
accept criticism and to face and solve conflicts; self-acceptance and personal
conviction – the feeling of self-worth, belief in validity of goals and personal life
values; inner conviction of control – understanding of the historical nature of one’s
surrounding and life condition; belief in one’s own capacity for intervention, taking
an active position when dealing with problems – facing any surrounding challenges
and seeking out solutions while maintaining objective within reach; flexibility and
adaptation to disruptive life events – the capacity to integrate unexpected change into
one’s more broad-ranging life plan; openness – the capacity and disposition to signal
to others one’s need for help in situations of crisis and requesting social support
(Herriger, 2006b apud Kleba & Wendausen, 2009).
The development of critical awareness is the process through which people gain
ever greater understanding of the sociocultural conditions which have molded their
lives and the extent of their capacity to change or overcome these conditions. A person
lives not only in the present but also in a historical context. A person is capable of not
only interpreting but also of interpreting others’ interpretations and thus critical
awareness provides the essence and the basis for all human learning (Freire 1987).
Critical self- awareness includes the recognition of all individuals of their right to
assign a name to their experiences, to learn to speak in their own language, and to
give names to the elements in their world (Van Den Bergh & Cooper, 1986 apud
Sadan, 2004).
The literature also emphasizes that the development of critical awareness is an
essential component in empowerment, which in practice is considered the product
of a dialectic between action and reflection and comprises three paths: 1)
development of a collective awareness in which the individual is not the only person
to have a problem; 2) development of social consciousness, that is to say, social and
collective problems are influenced by social organization;
3) development of political consciousness within the mind-set that the solution to
problems requires social change.
In this respect, if we consider that empowerment is a process which aims to
strengthen a group’s capacity to make intentional choices and to transform these
choices into actions and produce the results desired by the individual, it then becomes
necessary to examine not only the capacity to act but also the prospects for
transforming the choices into results (Albuquerque, Santos & Almeida, 2016).
Working with the community builds the individual’s capacity to act together with
others and thus create a society. It teaches people to cooperate, to make group
decisions and to resolve common problems and mobilize resources for the common
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good. Belief in active democracy, in participating to the utmost in the life of one’s
community, and in the exercise of an individual’s right to influence the important
decisions in his/her life, these represent the basis of thought on empowerment, and
without a doubt, they stem from the values of community work. However, in this
community work, as in whichever other professional field, the values may not always
testify to what is common practice in reality. Empowerment of the community is thus
attained via the active participation of these self- same members in the decisionmaking
processes which affect the community, beginning with the goal-setting stage
and continuing through to the assessment of the results of their efforts. The more
strongly directed to local groups and organizations (and the less directed to formal
and/or external services to the community) these actions are focused, the more
power the community will have in this area of intervention (Sadan, 2004).
The process of empowerment also brings about a strengthening of the organization,
both as a whole to achieve objectives and targets and as a system or unit. Offered here
are experiences of leadership and shared decision-making, actions of communication
and effective support, distribution of roles and responsibilities according to each
person’s abilities, the exchange of information and resources, appropriate
management with respect to growth and organizational development (Silva &
Martínez, 2004) “emancipatory forces, sources for change and social transformation”
(Gohn, 2004, p. 24).
We should also identify the empowering institutions asdifferent fromthe
empowered institutions, with the former being those which favor and support their
members in both personal and collective empowerment processes whereas the latter
are those which develop a process of organizational empowerment shown in their
engagement in issues of social and political interest (Silva & Martínez, 2004; Stark,
2006 apud Kleba & Wendausen, 2009). In other words, such an institution may
choose to act only with the intent to expand and strengthen the resources and
possibilities of its members without exerting political and social influence on the
surrounding conditions, which results in a smaller impact on the development of their
members’ capacities.
Carmen Silva and María Loreto Martínez (2004) have identified four basic
characteristics of empowering organizations, noting that they: 1) believe their
members provide growth and in a state of trust; 2) permit shared leadership, which
benefits individuals as much as the organization itself; 3) ensure that there are
opportunities for taking on different roles; 4) offer social support. Empowered
organizations are those which work in networks, influence policies, reach their
goals, develop ways to increase their effectiveness, etc.
Levels
According to the conceptual model developed by William Ninacs (2003), intervention
is based on three levels of empowerment – individual (corresponding to the process
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of assimilation of power by a person or a group), organizational (referring to the
appropriation of power by an organization in which a person, group or other
organization is empowered) and community (corresponding to the appropriation of
the community by the collective). It is his understanding that empowerment takes
place via a succession of stages through which the individuals or groups appropriate
the power and the ability to perform in an autonomous, free, informed, and clear way,
thus transforming choices into decisions.
Based on this model, Carla Pinto (2011:67-68) defines:
• Individual empowerment is thus described by the interaction on four
different planes: self-esteem (the search for the redefinition of identity and
the feeling of self-accomplishment and self-confidence); critical awareness
(formation of a collective, social and political consciousness requiring the
capacity for reflection and social analysis); competences (capabilities that
allow for the participation in and execution of actions, be they new skills or
the redefinition of those already in the subject’s possession); and
participation (the transition from the lack of voice to the presence of an
individual’s ability to express him/herself; emphasis on increasing
involvement in decision-making processes and in taking responsibility for
the consequences of participation). For its part, community empowerment
involves: communication (positive interaction, the expression of different
points of view, the circulation of relevant information, transparency in terms
of decision- making processes); capital in the community (feeling of
belonging and awareness of the issues of citizenship implicit to both selfhelp
and collective action); competences (identification and recognition of
community strengths – creating and maintaining synergies, using resources,
cooperation; and participation (bonds that allow members of the
community to participate effectively in the community and in its systems
and resources).
• Organizational empowerment, considered to be the intermediary, the
context, or the means through which individuals or communities enter the
empowerment process, also operates on four planes: recognition
(legitimacyofthe organization, which depends upon the way its members
perceive it and how its surrounding environment view and relates to it);
critical awareness (the capacity to analyze the organization);
competences (displayed by the community members, whether in decisionmaking
positions or not); and participation (of the organization within
the community or in terms of other organizations).
To summarize, the process of empowerment is a well-beaten path, both formally
and informally, leading in the direction of greater participation on the part of
citizens, organizations and community development, enabling them all to enjoy a
stronger voice, more influence and greater capacity to act and to make decisions on
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those issues which affect their lives in different instances (Horochovski, 2006;
Ornelas, 1997).
The conceptual map (map 1) shows the inter-relationship amongst concepts,
categories, and levels, which aids in understanding the complexity which underlies
the processes of empowerment.
Map 1: Conceptual Map – author’s elaboration (2017).
A reading and analysis of the synthesis provided here offers a conceptualization of
empowerment as an active process that implies the mobilization of personal
resources, participation (social, community, and organizational), and critical
awareness (collective, social, and political) that is intentional and continuous
(centered in the community), which requires change (internal – psychological
empowerment; and external – political empowerment) and is divided into four
categories – intrapersonal, instrumental, formal, and substantive – which can
respectively be associated with three different and interdependent levels –
individual, organizational, and community.
Empowerment and participatory methodologies
Social intervention directed toward underprivileged populations is guided by an
ethical policy project to assure social and citizenship rights, greater justice and social
equity, stronger commitment to quality of services, and the defense of liberty and
human dignity. However, the result is often a social construction in which the
inventors, theories, practices, and contexts significantly influence the choices which
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are on offer. The concepts, the personal characteristics, the skills and personal
experiences, the intervening party’s maturity, the organizational culture, the
characteristics of the territory and the public policies relative to the users of the
services offered and the citizens claiming their due rights – these are the intrinsic
elements of this construction. As there is no set guidebook for an intervention that
respects the aforementioned ethical policy project, participatory methodologies,
relative to the creation of collaborative action networks, have been enjoying
increasing regard and attention (Almeida, 2017). This author considers participation
a recurrent theme in all the approaches and models for social intervention in
contemporary societies, attaining a ‘quasi fashionable’ status in several contexts.
Nevertheless, as was stated earlier, for the process of empowerment to occur, and for
there to be a transformation within the person as a result, and for this change to be
projected to the community where the person lives, which could then in turn
influence the person and automatically influence the community, there must be a
social openness which invites the people to participate. Community participation and
empowerment are the main ingredients for the innovative social intervention
programs which are structured to take place within a community context with the
active collaboration of the target- group(s) (Ornelas, 1997).
One of the main objectives of participation is to increase the power of individuals
and communities in order to make individual and collective decisions. The concept is
structured on two interdependent levels: the micro, or individual level
– the process of individualization represents a path to self-identification and the
feeling of belonging to a group or community denoting processes of co-construction,
as much in terms of social alternatives as in structures for opportunity on the meso
(community) and macro (political) levels for the construction of a course which
defends the sharing of power and the affirmation of differences, and adopts a
“policy of intervention guided by ethical principles which defend freedom, equality,
and social justice” (Vieira, 2015, p.127 apud Almeida & Serra, 2016).
To make it possible for an increase in power at these different levels to occur,
something must occur to trigger individual participation in all those contexts that
require decision- making on issues dealing with the individual and/or the collective.
Participation can be allowed, stimulated, guaranteed, maintained, and manifest at
different levels (Pretty, 1995). Experiences which involve participation relate to the
participants’ degree of mastery and understanding of the process they find
themselves in. Aware participation is one in which the individuals involved possess
both clarity and understanding of the process that they are experiencing, for without
an appreciation of the reasons and consequences of their actions, the participation is
restricted and seemingly established for the sake of some form of domination. For the
same reason, participation cannot be imposed, donated or awarded. Its legitimacy is
found in the awareness of its importance, in the negotiation of spaces for its exercise
and for the constitution of rules that will endeavor to democratically delimit its
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practice. Therefore, participation must be considered as a great instrument for
enjoying the fullest rights of citizenship. In its broadest scope, full citizenship can
only be reinforced in the presence of a notion of participation that is understood as
a collective action and a conscious exercise that is voluntary and earned (Tenório
& Rosemberg, 1997).
According to Helena Almeida (2017), partnership311 and interventions in networks
constitute mastery where participatory methodologies operate given that they
presuppose mutual acceptance of various social, political, and economic
organizations along with diverse professional actors with competences adequate for
the intervention in complex and diversified contexts. Active and aware participation
that brings together the participants’ degree of mastery and understanding of the
process they are involved in (and in different contexts) will produce results that are
emancipating.
The capacity for acting and the possibility to transform choices into results are
directly related to participatory methodologies in which the individual is the agent
who is active in the processes of occupational performance and social participation
where, more than results, the experiences had by the members will serve to promote
and concretize the empowerment.
In the establishment of processes intended for social transformation, the multiple
concepts for building and the various ways to participate offer a new window of
opportunity which inspire the reconstruction of models and paradigms. Structuring a
common understanding – a type of grammar for intervention – is essential, one which
in theory supports the construction of the architecture of participation, or in other
words, a conceptual network that establishes the parameters for assessing
participation (Almeida & Serra, 2016).
Conclusion
Participation is the redistribution of power. The capacity to act and to exercise
power, that is to say, the development and the struggle against inequality, are
simultaneously a condition and a product of empowerment (Albuquerque et al.,
2016). This is a strategy through which individuals, not presently participating, can
promote significant social reform that will allow them to share benefits that involve
society to a greater extent (Arnstein, 2002).
Participation is beneficial in project management given that it favors the
sustainability of actions (it diversifies resources and matches them to the targetpublics
and the characteristics of the community and the territory), it strengthens
1
Partnership invites actors to intervene, working together in an innovative way which goes beyond the simple
articulation of competences. It is a relationship of structured and formalized sharing amongst social, economic,
political, cultural, and community actors involved in a common action from the planning stage to the realization of the
intervention and ending with the assessment of its activities and services. It is a way to manage relationships of power
(Denis Bourque, 2008 apud Almeida, 2017).
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the bonds of closeness to the community (through the sharing of the perspective,
the knowledge of expectations, needs, potentials, and the limits of individuals,
families, groups, and organizations), it allows for innovation by affording
professionals an opportunity for thedevelopment of propositional power
(networking favors interinstitutional relationships, the recognition of needs not
covered by existing devices and projects, and based on this knowledge, the
elaboration of jointly-made proposals), it favors obtaining more wide- ranging
results (given the diversification of target-publics and organizational and
professional inter-knowledge), it strengthens the dissemination of best practices
and the achievement of outcomes via partnerships (which stem from the
commitment to responsibilities and the division of tasks amongst the parties involved
with the project), it favors information sharing (promoting moments of team-work
and sharing), it reinforces networking (via the creation of interpersonal and
interinstitutional connections on the professional and political level), and
mediation among counterparts in the resolution of disagreements and conflicts.
(Almeida, 2017).
Empowerment thus implies the development of participatory processes with respect
to the construction of autonomy for the individuals and populations with which one
works, and in so doing serves to produce those conditions that are conducive for
decision-making and that create and develop the structures which enable
opportunities to arise.
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