Lay theories about collective power in the context of racial oppression

Abstract

Social psychological research has generally assumed that oppressed groups are powerless because they often have less control over resources and outcomes and power is usually defined as dominance or influence and control. We juxtapose this theoretical assumption with lay beliefs about the ingroup's collective power expressed in semi‐structured interviews among Black Americans (N = 28). Thematic analysis revealed that participants’ beliefs about ingroup power varied: whereas some participants perceived that the ingroup lacked power, others believed that the ingroup did have power, or the potential to gain it. These beliefs were based on distinct lay theories about collective power, conceptualized at different levels of analysis: the intragroup level (power as community resilience, enhancing ingroup solidarity), intergroup level (power as resistance against oppression, building coalitions between groups) and structural level (power as relative control over resources). We discuss the theoretical and methodological contributions and implications for research on collective power.

Resistance from below among racialized peoples: Exploring Kurdish understandings of power

“…Participants promptly articulated the fatal couplings through various accounts of coloniality, assimilation, criminalization, and violence by the Turkish state, and as demonstrated in daily intergroup relations. Such strong accounts also correspond to the ways in which racially oppressed groups counternarrate the asymmetrical power dynamics embedded in all walks of life, which can be better understood at different levels of society in various types of relationships (Salter & Haugen, 2017;Twali et al, 2023).…”

“…With regard to social psychological conceptualizations, such as power over and power from below (i.e., power to, power from, power with, power within, and power through), participants' understandings of Kurdish power over was a generic understanding of power as control over resources, a longing for a hegemonic central force, including the state and the interest disputes among different political groups (Simon & Oakes, 2006). Twali et al's (2023) recent research also indicated a similar understanding among Black Americans. Furthermore, antiessentialism was manifested in a dilemmatic way; while a critical consciousness about systematic racialization and essentialist lack of recognition by Turks is well-articulated and acts as a catalyst to reclaim Kurdishness, for some participants, it is not transferred to a nonessentialist understanding of Kurdishness, partially reproducing a hegemonic sense of nationalism (Amer & Obradovic, 2022).…”

“…This work also reveals where Kurds see the core of resistance against and resilience to the detrimental entanglements of racism and colonialism (Ünal & Coşkan, 2024). Specifically, participants’ accounts of nationhood, individual and collective representations of power, agency and subjecthood, belonging and ownership, multifragmentality, and unforgiveness indicate that understandings of Kurdish power underline a historically rooted critical conscientization of defining who Kurds are, an unbroken will for self‐determination despite restricted collective autonomy, and detrimental intergroup and intragroup dynamics as emphasized in Cegerxwîn's awakening poems (Twali et al., 2023; Yüksel, 2014). This complex critical consciousness transcends beyond an antithetical existence solely characterized by countering the hegemonic forces and narratives (Cabral, 1974; Fanon, 1969; Freire, 1985).…”

“…Furthermore, questioning power relations and looking for other forms and conceptions of power should be at the core of the discipline in order to decolonize social psychology (Maldonado-Torres, 2017). Despite these various perspectives, the issue of power itself (and its complex group dynamics) is rarely social psychologically theorized from below and through community epistemologies (i.e., ways of knowing) and praxis (integrating theory with practice) created by the people resisting against systemic inequality and injustice (e.g., Sonn & Fisher, 2003;Twali et al, 2023). As "one and a half" Kurdish researchers 2 committed to supporting Kurdish communities around us, we want to contribute to the ways in which we can address how anticolonial critical theorizing of power can be pursued from below.…”