Empowerment beyond resistance: Cultural ways of negotiating power relations

Ali, Rabia

doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.05.019

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Empowerment may appear a simple concept to define, yet, as Malhotra, Schuler, and Boender (:22) write, “there is a tendency to use the term loosely, without embedding it in a larger conceptual framework.” Rowlands () argues that the concept of empowerment has muddled scholarly thinking and practice because understanding of the root concept—power—is disputed. Development scholars tend to view empowerment as both a process and an exercise in agency (Ali ; Malhotra and Schuler ). Narayan (:4) defines empowerment as “the expansion of freedom of choice and action to shape one's life.” For Kabeer (:437), empowerment is the “expansion in people's ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them.” Both definitions stress the importance of agency in charting one's future and they centralize the role of process, highlighting a temporal component, but neither says anything about the forms in which power may be realized.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farm Women and the Empowerment Potential in Value‐Added Agriculture

Wright

Annes²

2016

Rural Sociology

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International audienceWhile the number of women in the U.S. is growing, less clear is whether increasing participation in agriculture translates into empowerment opportunities. Are invisibility and disempowerment lingering expressions of farm women's experience? Using qualitative data drawn from interviews with Michigan value-added farmers, we examine the extent to which women have been able to experience empowerment, and the ways in which value-added agriculture specifically fosters an empowering context. We adopt a conceptualization of empowerment from the development scholarship in order to establish a baseline for scrutiny, viewing empowerment as a multi-dimensional process constituting the 'power to' realize one's goals, the opportunity to exercise 'power with' others, and the ability to find and nurture 'power within' the self. Our findings indicate that value-added agriculture provides a unique context for women's empowerment. At the same time, the extent to which value added-agriculture constitutes a venue for women's empowerment is complex, multifaceted, and requires constant negotiation. It can be organized and performed in such a way as to subvert the empowerment process by confining women to specific social locations that may reify oppressive structures

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Section: Conceptualizing Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farm Women and the Empowerment Potential in Value‐Added Agriculture

Wright

Annes²

2016

Rural Sociology

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“…Whereas Woolf views empowerment as an outcome of the acquisition of material resources, development scholars are more likely to view empowerment as the exercise of personal agency (Ali, 2013), or the "ability to define one's goals and act upon them" (Kabeer, 1999, p. 438). This attempt to exercise agency occurs in the context of, and is constrained by, power relations grounded in social structures (Nazneen, Darkwah, & Sultan, 2014).…”

Section: Conceptualizing Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The extent to which this barn constitutes a space of resistance could be questioned, however. In fact, existing literature suggests that empowerment is also about changing power relations between men and women as well as other socio-cultural structures of domination (Ali, 2013;Longwe, 1990). If this activity allows women to challenge cultural representations of farm women which portray them as incomplete farmers and/or reduces them to farm helpers, other unequal power relations persist which may impede empowerment.…”

Section: "Power Within"mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Creating a room of one's own’: French farm women, agritourism and the pursuit of empowerment

Annes

Wright

2015

Women's Studies International Forum

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This paper explores how women use farm tourism as a vehicle for empowerment within the context of family farm agriculture. Drawing upon qualitative data of a farm women's agritourism network in southern France, we show that farm tourism enables women to cultivate personal empowerment strategies. Farm tourism allows women the opportunity to create a physical space for autonomy and individual creativity where they can pursue personal goals and overcome social isolation; in this way, it advances the process of empowerment. However, the process of empowerment is not without challenge. We demonstrate how the persistence of a patriarchal culture informed by an agrarian ideology can complicate this process. This study suggests that farm tourism permits women the possibility for constructing autonomous objectives which can lead to empowerment to the extent that they are acceptable to males and refrain from impeding male-led farming activity.

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“…In this way, empowerment is not equivalent to increased status; attaining status requires adherence to behaviors deemed valuable by a group of people, even when the behaviors act to the detriment of an individual (Bradley, 1995;Kabeer, 1999). Empowerment increases a woman's ability act in her own interests (Bradley, 1995), so it may undercut her status in a particular context and result in loss of respect (Ali, 2013). Consequently, we define women's empowerment as movement from oppression to liberation through a continuous process whereby a woman's awareness of alternatives and ability to exercise choice is enhanced.…”

Section: Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%