Paradox Of Empowerment Research Articles

Digitally mediated (dis)empowerment paradox in women-led group-buying during the Shanghai COVID lockdown

Abstract Extant scholarship increasingly attends to the mixed—and paradoxical—incorporation of information and communication technologies in social lives. Building on existing research, this study further explicates how digitally mediated (dis)empowerment paradoxes stem from the interactions among unevenly transformed structural affordances and constraints in the political, market, socio-cultural, and technological realms under digitalized contexts. Drawing on ethnographic data on women-led digital group-buying during the coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown in Shanghai, China, this study illustrates that the pandemic-inaugurated digitalization paradoxically transformed existing technological constraints into digital resources and techno-skills for women to lead digital group-buying and empower them socio-technologically. Yet these empowerments paradoxically turned into new gender inequalities, as entrenched state and market inequalities compelled female organizers to meet added or dueling burdens. This study, therefore, contributes to understanding the re/configuration and varied interaction patterns of different facets of structural affordances and constraints that condition digitally mediated (dis)empowerment paradoxes under digitalized contexts.

Social Entrepreneurship, Empowerment of Women Experiencing Homelessness and Gender Equality

The relationship between social entrepreneurship and social change continues to generate interest among researchers. We apply Kabeer’s conceptualisation of empowerment and additionally, explore intersectionality, paradox of empowerment and change agents for gender equality, to consider the practices of a social enterprise supporting the empowerment of women experiencing homelessness in the UK. We reflect on the motivations and drivers behind its work, the extent to which the women were able to access and control resources, and the change agents enabling this transformation. While the practices of the social enterprise in our case study positively affected women’s empowerment, they also bring to the fore several areas for reflection for social entrepreneurship research; the incorporation of intersectionality into advocacy for marginalised women such as those in our study, the role of male leaders in advancing gender empowerment and the need to find the delicate balance between empowerment on the one hand, and paternalism and suppression on the other.

Bias Cahaya: Paradoks Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Pada Difabel Netra di Kota Banjarbaru

Yayasan Kesejahteraan Tunanetra Nusantara and the Kompleks Disabilitas Banjarbaru are implementing empowerment programs for the visually impaired community in Banjarbaru City. This study aims to analyze the strategic approaches applied and the successes achieved by both institutions. This research uses a qualitative approach with a case study research design in two different locations. Data collection techniques include participant observation, in-depth interviews, and documentation. The results show that the empowerment programs for the visually impaired community from both institutions have not reached an ideal level of empowerment. The strategic approaches applied by both institutions include enabling and empowering approaches, while protecting approaches are not yet evident. Enabling or fostering an empowered climate is done through the provision of literacy spaces, information dissemination, and partnerships with the government and private sectors. Empowering activities are carried out through coaching and training in production and packaging, human resources, and technology. The empowerment programs carried out by both institutions have been able to increase the confidence and skills of visually impaired people to be self-reliant, which has resulted in increased income for some of those who have been empowered. However, protective efforts are not yet evident due to the unequal business competition that exists in both institutions. The approach used by YKTN and Pertuni has not always been able to improve the quality of life for blind people, but instead has made them lazy to make better use of themselves. The attitude of charity given by the community to the blind has made most of them more comfortable living on the streets by continuing to beg. Thus, there was a paradox of empowerment in the city of Banjarbaru.

The Representation of the Oriental Woman in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry: Liberating the Veiled Body in “Purdah” and “Ariel”

The present article discusses the representation of Oriental female figures in selected poems of Confessional poet Sylvia Plath, revealing the function of the women’s representations and their contribution to the poet's battle against patriarchy. The Orientalist aspect of Plath’s works is complex and comprises different layers of meanings. The analysis focuses on the characters of Ariel and the Muslim bride in “Purdah” regarding the notion of modesty through the physical and symbolic object of the veil. Thus, the study raises the question of whether the poet offered Eastern women the same voice of liberation as Westerners or whether her judgment was influenced by Oriental discourse that is prone to stereotypes and a lack of knowledge about other cultures and religions. The study relies on Edward Said’s Orientalist discourse, alongside Leila Abu Lughoud’s clarification on the position of Oriental women in the Western eye. The analysis also sheds light on concepts such as the “Wild Woman Archetype” to focus on the paradoxes of empowerment and subjugation embodied in the Oriental figures referenced in Plath’s poems. The study illustrates, through selected poems, the attitude of Sylvia Plath towards Oriental women and her endeavor to speak out on behalf of women's rights universally, at the risk of dismissing the peculiarities of Oriental culture and religion.

Active Ageing and Social Services: The Paradox of Empowerment in Russia

The essay describes the adoption of an active ageing policy framework in Russia. Based on semi-structured interviews with elderly Russians, the essay provides evidence of confusion and uncertainty on how to perceive one's own ageing. Research participants understood that the ‘paternalistic’ view of old age as a time of troubles was now largely viewed as obsolete, yet the new ‘optimistic’ view of old age as a time of freedom and opportunities often did not reflect their experiences. This mismatch in discourses and practices reflects how participatory empowerment rhetoric, which promotes active ageing, is becoming a justification for more modest state social service provision.

Powerful teaching, the paradox of empowerment and the powers of Foucault. An interview with Professor Stephen Brookfield

This interview follows up on a previous interview with Stephen Brookfield in the Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching (Brookfield et al., 2019). It was conducted as part of an ongoing book project with the working title Teaching well that the authors are involved in. This interview may be seen as a teaser for the book that is planned to be published in 2023. It constitutes an extended version of one out of 13 planned chapters and focuses on how power shows up in higher education classrooms. Classrooms are never power-free zones. Every learning environment contains student-to-student and student-to-teacher power dynamics. We discuss various influences on Stephen Brookfield’s conceptual understanding of power, especially Michel Foucault’s concepts of sovereign, disciplinary and bio-power and their applicability to education. In this context, we explore similarities between prisons and schools, the metaphor of the panopticon, and the continued relevance of bio-power during the current pandemic. The democratic practice of discussion groups is questioned (despite Stephen Brookfield’s personal preference of that modality) and the lecture is reinstated as one of several useful modalities. We then arrive at Brookfield’s concept of powerful teaching & learning and how teachers can exercise their power in ethical, productive and responsible ways. The interview ends with Brookfield’s advice on institutional criticism. Since beginning his teaching career in 1970, Stephen Brookfield has worked in England, Canada, Australia, and the U.S., teaching in a variety of adult, community, organisational and higher education settings (the latter include Harvard University and Columbia University). In his endeavour to help adults learn to think critically about the dominant ideologies they have internalised, Professor Brookfield has written, co-written or edited 20 books on adult learning and teaching, critical thinking, discussion methods, critical theory and teaching race.

Forced Empowerment and the Paradox of Mobile Dating Apps

New women-focused mobile dating apps purport to empower women by having them “make the first move” and disrupt traditional male-dominated dating norms. Drawing on feminist approaches and technological affordances, we examine how heterosexual cisgender women and men experience this “empowerment” and contrast it to other mobile dating app use. We used a multimethod approach to conducting app walkthroughs, focus groups, and interviews to contrast the mobile dating apps, Tinder and Bumble. The findings reveal that perceptions of free choice and action determine empowerment experiences. Our study reveals that the “forced empowerment” on Bumble was still strongly shaped by heterosexual gender norms that encouraged “good” girls and guys to use the app to look for long-term relationships but continue to use Tinder to hook up, despite the popular misogyny on Tinder identified by both men and women in our study. We conclude by discussing the empowerment paradox of dating apps through popular feminism and misogyny.

Empowerment and beyond: Paradoxes of self-organised work

In recent years, empowerment has increasingly become the watchword for work in knowledge-intensive industries. In particular, The Agile Manifesto (2001) and new management approaches such as agile frameworks promise to cut down documentation duties and increase autonomy for knowledge workers. It nonetheless remains an open question whether self-organisation as a structural framework and self-organising as an agentic, team-based process can actually be realised in a holistic manner. By building on insights into the paradox of organising and the paradox of autonomy and control, we consider the conditions under which self-organised work in fact becomes feasible. We therefore focus conceptually on two paradoxes of empowerment and empirically on project teams within software development firms. Our data show that organisations might respond to these paradoxes by structurally and culturally opening up to agile approaches – thereby not only empowering teams, but also enabling them to develop by providing structural and personal resources, qualifications and means for promoting self-awareness.

The Empowerment Paradox

An extensive literature is dedicated to examining the proliferation of private sector-led, market-based approaches to address gender inequality. Drawing on insights from feminist environmentalism and environmental sociology, I explore how and why this phenomenon is connected to the environmental crisis. First, I analyze the World Bank’s gender strategy papers for 2001–2023. I highlight the organization's role in entrenching a neoliberal discourse of women's empowerment that erases socio-ecological contexts. Next, I provide an overview of Project Shakti, a women’s empowerment program run by Hindustan Unilever, a subsidiary of the Unilever conglomerate and a corporate partner of the World Bank. Secondary data on program outcomes show that the organization’s selective use of gendered ideologies has increased HUL's rural market share. On the other hand, the benefits for participants are less clear, particularly when considered in the context of the program’s social and environmental footprint. Finally, I present the Exxon Mobil's Foundation's gender portfolio to illustrate how exclusive networks and non-participatory program evaluations have been used by private sector actors to normalize an understanding of women's wellbeing that is devoid of environmental considerations. Together, these cases illustrate how feminist ideals have been used to support elite economic agendas with high environmental costs, while also marginalizing those who seek sustainable development through systemic reform. This phenomenon exacerbates an environmental crisis that disproportionately affects the people these programs purport to empower.

Economic Citizenship: Neoliberal Paradoxes of Empowerment

Economic Citizenship: Neoliberal Paradoxes of Empowerment

Empowerment Gone Bad

Empowerment as a positively connoted concept has been studied extensively in applied research in different fields. Yet its unfavorable, paradoxical character has so far not received enough theoretical attention to make it possible to improve empowerment efforts. In this theoretically informed analysis of the processes that lead to the paradox of empowerment, the author argues that it evolves from discrepancies between approaching empowerment from a structural versus a communicative viewpoint: empowerees’ agency might be increased on a structural level but simultaneously decreased on a communicative level, leaving them feeling disempowered.

The paradoxes of empowerment: gendering NREGA in the rural landscape of India

ABSTRACTThe growing importance of public works programmes (PWPs) as a social protection tool has attracted significant scholarly attention. However, despite the fact that the empowerment of marginalised communities is one of the key objectives of most PWPs, scant attention has been dedicated to this crucial issue. We contextualise these concerns in relation to India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). In particular, we propose two areas which are relatively unexplored. First, the methodologies currently used to research NREGA and PWP, more generally, need to be broadened. Second, the processes that lead to empowerment need to be researched empirically.

The empowerment paradox as a central challenge to patient centered medical home implementation in the veteran's health administration

In this paper we present results of a mixed methods study conducted to identify barriers to team function among staff implementing patient aligned care teams – the Department of Veterans Affairs' patient centered medical home (PCMH) model. Using a convergent mixed methods design, we administered a standardized survey measure (Team and Individual Role Perception Survey) to assess work role challenge and engagement; and conducted discussion groups to gather context pertaining to role change. We found that the role of primary care providers is highly challenging and did not become less difficult over the initial year of implementation. Unexpectedly over the course of the first year nurse care managers reported a decrease in their perceptions of empowerment and clerical associates reported less skill variety. Qualitative data suggest that more skilled team members fail to delegate and share tasks within their teams. We characterize this interprofessional knowledge factor as an empowerment paradox where team members find it difficult to share tasks in ways that are counter to traditionally structured hierarchical roles. Health care systems seeking to implement PCMH should dedicate resources to facilitating within-team role knowledge and negotiation.

Third‐way neoliberalism and conditional cash transfers: The paradoxes of empowerment, participation and self‐help among poor Uruguayan women

The Latin American literature on Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) welfare programs has typically involved the quantitative evaluation of social and economic impact, with fewer studies addressing the qualitative and gendered impacts of CCTs. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in poor squatter settlement communities in Uruguay, this article explores the everyday social realities of poor single mothers who have been disconnected from their kinship networks and must rely on CCT payments for survival. I locate these women's experiences within the third‐way neoliberal discourses of ‘empowerment’, ‘participation’ and ‘self‐help’ espoused by the state, and the various structural conditions, including crime, violence and unequal gender relations, that impact negatively on women's abilities to comply with their social and civic duties. I argue that rather than producing responsible and empowered subjects, Uruguay's recent CCT welfare program has paradoxically limited some women's participation in civic and public life and reproduced their dependent relations with men.

Powerful parent educators and powerless parents: The ‘empowerment paradox’ in parent education

SummaryIn an action research project to develop an empowering mode of parent education in Hong Kong, premised on an empowerment discourse and a social constructionist epistemology, a pilot design was developed through a series of four “reflective seminars”. These seminars engaged parents and professionals in a process of participatory inquiry, three parent groups with Chinese parents, followed by two focused group interviews and six individual interviews to tap participants’ narratives of their learning experience.FindingsAlthough parent empowerment has been widely advocated in parenting work, the authority of expert knowledge as perceived by participants and the power imbalance between parent educators and parents posed a new “empowerment paradox”. In our attempt to practice a new empowering mode of parent education for local parents was developed. Addressing this “empowerment paradox” requires a paradigm shift from the education model to an approach based on reflexive practice.ApplicationsParent educators need to be sensitive to social, cultural, discursive and institutional forces in order to negotiate a power relation that is characterized by collaboration and partnership but is also responsive to parents’ pedagogical expectation in the Chinese cultural context.

The “Paradox of Empowerment” in Parent Education: A Reflexive Examination of Parents' Pedagogical Expectations

In an action research project designed to develop a new paradigm for parent education in alignment with the “strengths perspective,” a social constructionist epistemology, and the empowerment discourse, it was found that parents joining two parent groups actually valued and sought expert knowledge. Seeking to empower these parents by adopting a collaborative learning approach—facilitating a reflective discussion of their parenting experience while refraining from meeting their expectation to be taught—we were actually exercising professional power in imposing our ideology of empowerment on the parents. To resolve this “paradox of empowerment,” we came to the see that parent educators cannot avoid meeting parents' pedagogical expectation. They should, however, provide expert knowledge and advice with epistemic reflexivity. Moreover, they need to navigate the micropolitics in the interaction between themselves as “educators” and parents as “learners,” so as to negotiate a power relation that is characterized by collaboration and partnership.

Human resource development practice: the paradox of empowerment and individualization

The main objective of the current paper is to point to the dualistic nature of HRD practice: employee empowerment strategy juxtaposed with high levels of individualization. HRD practice contributes to a series of dualities in organizations such as flexibility vs. loyalty, commitment vs. individualization and responsibility vs. alienation. The paper will argue that current HRD strategies have an individualistic role rather than an interactive and interpersonal influence for better knowledge sharing and organizational learning. The research implies that HRD should change its interventions in terms of how the individual is conceptualized to make knowledge actionable in social contexts to create favourable conditions for knowledge sharing and organizational learning.

Resolving the Paradoxes of and Barriers to Patient-Centered Culturally Sensitive Health Care

The three reviews of the Major Contribution in this issue of The Counseling Psychologist provide thought-provoking critiques of counseling psychology's role in patient-centered culturally sensitive health care. In this rejoinder, the authors situate these critiques within the historical context of enduring paradoxes and barriers confronting counseling psychologists' entry into health care settings. The primary themes of this discussion focus on the imprecision of health care terms, the paradox of empowerment, and the challenges of overcoming the status quo.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Paradox of Empowerment: Reflections on a Case Study from Northern Ghana

In recent years the “development” industry has began to incorporate into its vocabulary notions about the “empowerment of the poor,” “participatory democracy,” “gender in development” etc. as part of a strategy for poverty alleviation in the developing world. This paper critically examines the notion of participation as the basis of empowerment in the context of a joint Canadian–Ghanaian financed rural development project in the Northern Region of Ghana. The paper argues that because of the inherent goodness of the notion of participation, it has become a substitute for the structural reforms needed for social change. The paper raises questions not just about the terms and mode of participation but further points out that reference to the term “village” or “community” as the basis of participation is simplistic and problematic. The paper also questions the feasibility of the institutional and administrative structures within which such concepts may be realized.