The Will to Empower

Cruikshank, Barbara

doi:10.7591/9781501733918

Cited by 1,096 publications

(85 citation statements)

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“…The bounded, masterful self, as they see it, is a fiction. It is impossible to separate out the self from the social because what is taken as the private domain of the self is defined by the social (Cruikshank, 1999). The forms that selfhood takes are defined and determined by the social surround.…”

Section: To Thine Own Self Be Truementioning

confidence: 99%

Dreaming the American Dream: Individualism and Positive Psychology

Becker

Marecek

2008

Social & Personality Psych

107

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Although positive psychology now promotes itself globally, its American roots are evident in its persistent though unacknowledged attachment to an Americaninspired brand of individualism. That attachment is evident in the movement's endorsement of self-fulfillment as the ultimate life goal, its promotion of selfimprovement via personal effort, and its narrow sense of the social. We maintain that the bounded, autonomous self that strides through a positive life is an illusion, as is the notion that human flourishing and happiness are readily available to all. We also take issue with the individualistic vision that pervades positive psychologists' descriptions of society and social institutions. Taking as an example A Primer in Positive Psychology (a recent textbook written by one of the founding fathers of positive psychology and highly praised by the others), we argue that positive psychology's rendering of social institutions is fundamentally asocial and neglects gender, class, ethnicity, and power relations.

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Section: To Thine Own Self Be Truementioning

confidence: 99%

Dreaming the American Dream: Individualism and Positive Psychology

Becker

Marecek

2008

Social & Personality Psych

107

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“…Qualitative data generated from the case studies reinforced findings from the literature that suggested participatory practices in social services had increased, but had done so in inconsistent and tokenistic ways (Beresford & Croft, 2004;Carr, 2007;Cruikshank, 1999). Service users participated in decision making regarding social services through a number of means, which varied greatly across the two sectors of mental health and homelessness.…”

Section: Service-user Perspectives: Homelessness and Mental Health Camentioning

confidence: 78%

“…However, it was not just about the individual's capacity or willingness to participate, but also the way in which participation had been construed as particular sets of activities, such as taking part in committees, that were really only accessible to those with resources and capacity (including stability) to take part. Cruikshank's (1999) assertion that participation and empowerment were, paradoxically, tools to enact compliance and make people govern themselves through 'the capacity of citizens to act upon themselves, guided by the expertise of the social sciences and social service professionals' (p. 89) was a concern reflected in the research findings. The tools of participation tended to be controlled by the authorities -government and service providers and sometimes even consumer groupsrather than service users themselves and were overly simplistic, homogenous responses to highly complex and dynamic circumstances.…”

Section: From Service-user Participation To Integrative Social Justicementioning

confidence: 97%

Putting the parity into service‐user participation: An integrated model of social justice

2013

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Models of service‐user participation have derived from citizenship or consumerist agendas, neither of which has achieved the structural reforms important for the most marginalised social work clients. This article proposes Fraser's model of ‘parity of participation’ as an appropriately multifaceted frame for capturing the social justice aspirations of service‐user participation. A qualitative case study compared the experiences and expectations of people who had used Australian mental health services with a sample who had used Australian homelessness services to examine their expectations of participation at individual and representative levels. The findings reinforce concerns from Fraser's research about the tendency for identity‐based consumerist notions of participation to reify group identity. This leads to tokenistic service‐user involvement strategies that have little impact on participation at a structural level. Fraser's parity of participation is shown to have untested potential to reshape service‐user participation to meet the social justice aspirations of social work clients. Key Practitioner Message: ● Innovative, service‐user driven strategies for collaboration will be those which challenge existing power structures; ● Service users want their contributions to decision making to generate identifiable change in the system of social services; ● The success of service‐user participation strategies might be the extent to which political, economic and cultural opportunities are enhanced.

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“…There has been a fecund field of Foucauldian scholarship that has explored the varieties of liberal governmentality, with a particular interest in the constitution of responsibilized subjects. In this view, a variety of advanced or neoliberal discourses and practices have (re-)constituted citizens as ''actuarial subjects'' (O'Malley, 2004); as ''communal'' and ''consuming subjects'' (Rose, 1999); as ''enterprising'' or ''self-sustaining'' selves (McDonald & Marston, 2006); as ''empowered citizens'' (Cruikshank, 1999); and as mediatized responsible selves ''freed'' from government (Ouellette & Hay, 2008). The movement from expansive or welfarist liberalism to advanced liberalism is characterized by this shift toward the production of self-governing subjects (Dean, 1999;Petersen, Barns, Dudley, & Harris, 1999).…”

Section: Becoming Ordinary: Governing Through Responsibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

In Search of Ordinary People: The Problematic Politics of Popular Participation

Clarke

2013

Communication, Culture & Critique

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In this article, I explore the contemporary political and governmental enthusiasm for the participation of ordinary people in fields of economic, social, and political life. I sketch some examples of this growing enthusiasm, beginning with the transformation of welfare states. I then explore different accounts of the centrality of ordinary people to contemporary political and governmental strategies, considering the emergence of advanced liberal efforts of construct ''responsible'' subjects; the role of popular participation in neoliberalism's de-politicizing tendencies; and the ambiguous place of the people in authoritarian populist politics. I consider the capacity of the idea of ''ordinary people'' to connect different sites of political and governmental innovation-and the failure of ordinary people to live up to their idealized status.

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The Will to Empower

Cited by 1,096 publications

References 0 publications

Dreaming the American Dream: Individualism and Positive Psychology

Dreaming the American Dream: Individualism and Positive Psychology

Putting the parity into service‐user participation: An integrated model of social justice

In Search of Ordinary People: The Problematic Politics of Popular Participation

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