PSYC 487

2/23/16

Empowerment, Citizen Participation, & the Cycle of Liberation

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Empowerment
o Used in popular culture.
o Has many meanings; used differently in different contexts.
Empowerment in Community Psychology
o An intentional, ongoing process centered in local community,
involving mutual respect, critical reflection, caring, and group
participation, through which people lacking an equal share of resources
gain greater access to and control over those resources.
- Cornell Empowerment Group cited in Wiley &
Rappaport
o Empowerment involves:
Gaining and exercising greater power.
Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.
Mutual and reciprocal relationships in settings.
Multiple levels.
Can, but does not necessarily, transfer across levels.
Context and Limits of Empowerment
o Empowerment is contextual
o It has its limits
Citizen Participation
o A process in which individuals take part in decision making in the
institutions, programs, and environments that affect them
(Wandersman, 1984, p. 339).
o Difference between a citizen and a client.
o Citizen Participation tends to be more effective when done in a
collective process.
Neighborhood groups, student coalitions, unions
o Citizen Participation as a means to an end.
o Citizen Participation as an end itself.
Essential feature of democracy
o Research on Citizen Participation suggests:
Can increase quality of decisions in an organization.
Can promote effective leadership & goal achievement.
Developing Leadership
o Empowering settings have committed leaders who articulate a vision
for the organization, demonstrate interpersonal and organizational
skills, share power and mentor new leaders.
Types of Power
o Power Over: capacity to compel or dominate others; enforce a
command, or control use of resources.
o Power To: ability of individuals or groups to pursue their own goals
and to develop ones capacity.
o Power From: the ability to resist a power or unwanted demand of
others.

PSYC 487
2/23/16
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Integrative Power
o Capacity to work together, build groups, bind people together, and
inspire loyalty.
o Social sources of integrative power:
o Tool used in social movements & liberation.
Instruments of Social Power
o Controlling resources that can be used to bargain, reward, and punish.
o Controlling channels for participation in community decisions.
o Shaping the definition of a public issue or conflict.
Summary Thoughts on Power
o An analysis of power is important in understanding social systems &
interventions.
Power is not all or nothing; dimensional.
Power is best understood in relationships & context.
o Power of a group to be involved in what affects them could be a focus
of intervention itself.
o Power is not purely an internal state; it requires capacity to influence
others.
Cycle of Liberation
o Liberation is defined as a critical transformation
o The problem must be named in terms of systemic assumptions,
structures, rules, or roles that are flawed
o Teaches us how to play our roles in oppression
o How to revere the existing systems that shape our thinking
o Cycle of Liberation provides the events common to successful
liberation
o It is not necessarily a step-by-step process
o One can start at any stage
o There is no end to the Cycle of Liberation
o Liberation binds us with the vision that there can be a better world and
we can help to create it
Stage of the Cycle of Liberation
Waking Up stage Getting Ready stage Reaching Out Stage
Building Community stage Coalescing stage Creating Change
stage Maintaining stage