Empowerment, Emancipation and Health Promotion Policy

Abstract

Abstract: Conventional approaches to social intervention assume that the solutions to social problems lie in the ability to organize the social world according to the technocratic mindset of the state administrative apparatus. An emancipatory approach to intervention adheres to the principle that systemic activity must be rationalized by collective understanding emerging from everyday experience. This article examines the extent to which Canadian empowerment oriented health promotion programs demonstrate a capacity to support this emancipatory interest. Using a Habermasian framework I put forward the argument that the political strength of such programs lies in their capacity to create communicative spaces which allow for the exploration of common interests and the emergence of collective political agency. Resume: Les approches traditionnelles a l'intervention sociale partent du principe que les solutions aux problemes sociaux reposent sur la capacite d'adapter le monde social aux attitudes ancrees des technocrates de l'appareil administratif de l'Etat. Une approche emancipatrice a l'intervention sociale soutient qu'il faut rationaliser l'activite systemique au moyen d'une comprehension collective issue du vecu quotidien. Le present article examine jusqu'a quel point les programmes canadiens de la promotion de la sante de type habilitateur peuvent eclairer cette approche emancipatrice. A l'aide d'un schema inspire de Habermas, je soutiens que la force politique de ces programmes depend de leur capacite de creer des possibilites de communication qui facilitent l'exploration des interets communs et l'action politique collective. Introduction Since the early 1980s social programmers and activists within the health promotion, adult education and social welfare sectors increasingly have used the language of empowerment oriented intervention to articulate and develop strategies for enhancing the skills, knowledge and behavioural capacity of the dispossessed. This paper assesses the emancipatory potential of this empowering approach to social intervention using a Habermasian analytical framework. My interest in pursuing this concern is twofold. First, I hope to advance the potential of empowerment oriented intervention as an emancipatory project. The issue is particularly relevant for feminists and other critical thinkers whose interventionary efforts are directed at the dissolution of oppressive social practices and structures. Second, I hope to contribute to the growing body of literature which explores the practical, everyday dimensions of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action (Fischer, 1985; Carr and Kemmis, 1986; Forester, 1988, Hart 1989; Collins, 1991; Welton, 1995; Marshall, 1995; Parkin, 1996). In pursuing this argument, first I will provide an introduction to the practice of social intervention and a description of empowerment oriented intervention specifically as it has been articulated in the social programs emerging from Health Canada's Ottawa Charter (1986). Second, I will discuss what Habermas argues are the disempowering attributes of the social interventionary process -- the privileging of technocratic rationality, systemic appropriation of communication, and the disempowerment of the political citizen. Using three Health Canada projects as examples, I will examine the extent to which these characteristics continue to manifest themselves in social programs which are based on some notion of empowerment. Third, I will argue that the emancipatory moment, or critical fulcrum in empowerment oriented interventions, lies in the emphasis on group participation and mutual support. I will argue that it is here that one finds the legitimate starting point for the construction of an emancipatory approach to social intervention. Intervention, Empowerment and Health Promotion In advanced capitalist societies, organized state-initiated social programming has become the remedial response to an ever growing list of societal ills. …