For quite a while I’ve flinched every time I’ve said or overheard the word ‘empowerment’. I have felt uneasy that some might think the oppressed or disadvantaged should all be helped to be more confident. I’ve been searching for and cogitating on an alternative. Finally, I think I’ve got one. For now, at least.
First, you may ask: why be uneasy with empowerment? Seems like a positive and helpful thing doesn’t it? Well, my big difficulty with it is this. It assumes the person or subject of the empowering lacks their own power or agency. To not have power does not mean their is a lack of capacity to have power, or to use it positively. The problem instead is those with power around them, if they are holding onto it with a vice like and un-sharing grip. It isn’t equal. It is being controlled and restricted to the few.
Second, the whole process of empowerment suggests there is a giver and a receiver. The assumption is those that are to be empowered cannot assume power without the enabling facilitation and support of a benevolent power-holding expert. That’s just too simplistic, and holds echoes of colonialism, patriarchy, and patronage.
Third, we could argue those who don’t have their fair share of power have already done extremely well to achieve so far, against all the odds. They have a full range of skills borne from experience to date. In contrast, those with more than their fair share, may have built it themselves – I admit, or perhaps they were gifted it, or inherited it, or they were privileged enough that it arrived by default. their relationship with power runs the risk of being unconscious and incompetent.
What therefore could be more empowering than empowering? How about dispowerment? That way we acknowledge the actual process required, it gives those in positions of inequity more agency and choices, and deconstructs the sense and feeling of the giving or equipping of power in the process.
Find Joy in the Middle 