Tool For Empowerment Research Articles

Podcasting about yourself and challenging norms: An investigation of independent women podcasters in Denmark

Abstract This article investigates why and how women use independent podcasting and social media platforms to challenge norms afflicting their own personal lives. Extending previous studies of independent podcasting as a tool of empowerment, this article analyses semi-structured interviews with the hosts of two podcasts: the mental health and personal journals podcast A Seat at The Table and the parenting podcast Our Different Family [Vores Anderledes Familie]. The podcasts are norm-challenging but, at the same time, illustrative of a gendered podcasting sphere in which women primarily podcast about what has traditionally been considered female domains, such as mental health, personal journals, and parenting. The study finds that podcasting’s lack of visuals and unrestricted, conversational format allow for creating and distributing in-depth realisations about personal norm-challenging issues. Simultaneously, it finds that the participatory affordances of social media platforms are essential for receiving feedback, content ideas, and emotional support from like-minded listeners when the podcasters challenge oppressive norms.

Entre o esbelto e o obeso: narrativas de mulheres que fizeram cirurgia bariátrica

The purpose of this article is to explore the self meaning-making in people who underwent bariatric surgery to reduce their weight. Guided by the narrative approach, we apply the concept of position to understand the meaning-making process about the self. Two adults who underwent bariatric surgery at a hospital in the Metropolitan Region of Recife are part of the study. Narrative interviews were used as a technique and positioning analysis was the analytical strategy employed. We suggest the research participants position themselves as obese people who are socially constrained, who feel inadequate about how they look, who cannot dance, who cannot wear certain clothes; (2) thereby they reaffirme the dominant narrative of the slim contour as “the norm”; (3) for the research participants, the bariatric surgery served as a tool of empowerment that promotes a transformation in their sense of self from being at the margins to feeling a sense of social belonging and personal acceptance.

Elderly people social groups as a tool for health empowerment: action research

O estudo teve por objetivo construir, coletivamente, ações de promoção de saúde com idosos e profissionais de saúde e avaliar, na perspectiva dos idosos, os significados para o empoderamento em saúde. Realizou-se uma pesquisa-ação com uma equipe de Saúde da Família (eSF), núcleo ampliado de Saúde da Família e 26 idosos, em uma perspectiva dialógica e participativa. Ao final, 17 idosos foram entrevistados. Utilizou-se a técnica de análise temática. Emergiram na voz dos idosos os significados atribuídos ao grupo por meio de socialização, vínculos significativos, compartilhamento e aprendizagens. Compreende-se a potencialidade do grupo como espaço de escuta, de criação e compartilhamento de experiências e de valorização das histórias de vida dos idosos nesse território. A interação impulsionou a ressignificação do processo de envelhecimento e os projetos de vida, gerando maior satisfação com a saúde e a vida.

A Tryst with Alternative Pedagogies: Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire

Apart from the dissemination of skills and knowledge, education is also meant to be a tool of social and political empowerment, freedom, inclusiveness and enrichment of each individual’s existence in society. However, proponents of alternative educational approaches have pointed to the ‘self-defeating’ nature of traditional schooling systems wherein students have limited influence over educational choices and are required to follow set rules and meet certain predetermined standards. Furthermore, they aver that educational systems aid the reproduction of inequality in society. This article engages with the unique and forceful pedagogical models proposed by Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire, which constitute two important strands in critical pedagogy. It coaxes us to take a fresh look at the restrictive nature of institutionalised education.

Faster, Better, Happier – Internal Crowd Work as Form of Structural Empowerment for Employee Empowerment and Success

ICW is gaining increasing importance as an innovative concept of digital work organization. This study examines ICW and its role as a structural empowerment tool driving the psychological empowerment of employees. This is done by means of a case study on a telecommunications company that has been successfully using ICW for more than ten years. Using a mixed-method approach, a model for an in-depth understanding of empowerment in ICW is exploratively developed based on qualitative data. Furthermore, organizational enablers in ICW are identified as important prerequisites and success factors. Additionally, the study shows how ICW as structural empowerment promotes psychological empowerment and can lead to higher speed, increased synergies, and higher employee satisfaction. A quantitative deep-dive provides additional figures on the structural empowerment mechanisms in ICW as well as on employee perceptions.

Microfinance Services and the Clients’ Socioeconomic Wellbeing During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Uganda

Microfinance is reported to be an effective tool of empowerment for vulnerable and marginalised groups, especially women. This study set out to investigate the relationship between microfinance services and the clients’ socioeconomic wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic in Uganda. The study involved 73 employees of microfinance institutions that deal directly with the clients. The study findings revealed that while no significant relationship exists between microfinance services and clients’ socioeconomic wellbeing, there is a significant moderate positive relationship between microfinance client protection policies and the clients’ socioeconomic wellbeing. The regression model revealed that a unit increase in client protection policies increases the socioeconomic wellbeing of microfinance services beneficiaries by 72%. It is recommended that microfinance institutions integrate client protection policies in their activities in line with their known social mission

Impact of Government Welfare Schemes on Empowerment of Minority Women in Karnataka

Purpose: Even though the government had taken many initiatives for the empowerment of minority women but the success of such initiatives is questionable. A strong tool for perfect empowerment requires financial independence and self-reliant, and this can be achieved only through financial support. With this intention, a present study was conducted to evaluate the impact of awareness and utilisation of various welfare schemes on the empowerment of minority women. Design/Methodology/Approach: A study was conducted in Karnataka by taking 388 minority women as a sample unit. Simple random sampling techniques were used to select sample units and primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Hypotheses are developed to support the primary objective and tested with simple regression analysis. Findings/Result: The study found that minority women have a very low level of awareness and utilisation of government welfare schemes which has adversely affected the overall development of minority women. This study suggested to take awareness programs for minority women in rural areas to achieve overall empowerment in India. Paper Type: Analytical Paper

Uplifting the socio-economic empowerment of women through handicraft industry

Empowerment is seen as being capable of making choices about job, marriage, mobility, entertainment, and the number of children. The present study focused on the role of handicraft businesswomen, their experiences, and the role of handicraft business as a tool of empowerment for women in Gilgit, Pakistan. The study was limited to the experiences of women producing handicrafts and viewed as socio-economic empowerment for those who are producing handicrafts. This study employed a qualitative research design. The thematic analysis of interviews of the craftswomen showed that they were empowering themselves economically and socially through handicraft business. The research findings reinforced the objectives of the study that the craftswomen perceive empowerment as economic independence and the income generated through handicrafts strengthens their economic as well as social position in society. This study concludes that their economic and social position becomes stronger after starting to earn income. These women also felt like the source of change in terms of motivation, inspiration, and encouragement for the other women in the society. They viewed and regarded the skill of handicrafts as the source of income and financial support for their families.

Plan Twice, Measure Once: Designing a Financial Capability Service With Evaluation in Mind

An emphasis on career pathways in workforce development legislation and practice requires the public vocational rehabilitation (VR) program to explore an array of new services to those traditionally available to consumers. This manuscript examined the curriculum currently available for training providers to use in building consumers’ financial capability, a key complement to career pathways, and describes a vision for a service that positively impacts consumers’ financial well-being moving forward. Rather than analyzing the impact of services already in place, this manuscript aimed to elucidate the process of designing a service with intentionally-embedded outcome measures. This paper is intended to serve as a conceptual blueprint for VR evaluation professionals and foster the development of evidence supporting consumer access to financial empowerment tools and services that promote financial well-being and economic advancement.

“Hey Black Child. Do You Know Who You Are?” Writing for Liberation and Empowerment in a First Grade Writer’s Workshop

Mukkaramah Smith and Kaitlin Jones, 2020 recipients of the Graves Award, explain how writing can be used as a tool for liberation and empowerment.

Patient-completed safety checklists as an empowerment tool for patient involvement in patient safety: concepts, considerations and recommendations

The application of safety checklists to healthcare settings to help systematise routines and improve communication between healthcare professionals has proven to be effective in reducing errors, complications, mortality and hospitalisation time. There is a new call to extend the checklist concept to develop safety checklists that can be used by patients to help empower their involvement in safety practices. Only a handful of studies around patient-completed checklists exist, but those that do indicate a positive impact on patient empowerment and involvement in safety-related behaviours. In this article, we present the concept of patient-completed checklists and provide a review of the existing evidence, highlighting important design and implementation considerations, and making recommendations for future research and development.

Nothing About Us Without Us: Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) and arts-based methods as empowerment and social justice tools in doing research with youth ‘aging out’ of care

Child welfare practices and policies are often disconnected from youth in care's perspectives and lived realities. Youth ‘aging out’ of care should be empowered to define their own needs, goals and success based on the unique context they are transitioning from. In research, this can be supported by engaging them as co-researchers through emancipatory approaches.Participatory Action Research (PAR) requires collaboration with those who are affected by the issue being studied in all aspects of the research, with the aim to build advocacy capacity and affect transformative social change. Photovoice employs photography and group dialogue - the fusion of images and words - as an empowerment tool, through which individuals can work together to represent their own lived experiences rather than have their stories told and interpreted by others. This is a particularly powerful approach in engaging youth with care experience, as they are often systemically disenfranchised, isolated and in need of connections to the community.This article presents the Relationships Matter for Youth ‘Aging Out’ of Care project, a Participatory Action Research (PAR) photovoice research project with young people with lived experience, as a case study. The project aimed to take a closer look at the relationships that matter to youth from care and how they can be nurtured over time. Narratives about the experience of participating in the project are also featured, from the perspectives of three of the youth co-researchers. Some of the benefits, challenges and lessons learned are also explored, framed within the Relationships Matter project methodology and process. Recommendations for future social work research are also presented.

The WELL and Usenet Alternative Newsgroups: Revisiting the Free Speech Revolution on the Electronic Frontier of the 1980s and 1990s

The democratization of personal computers and their increasing role as tools of individual empowerment, starting in the second half of the 1980s, brought along new ways of interpersonal communication on what was about to be known as cyberspace (Barlow 1990). The examples of The WELL, founded by Larry Brilliant and Stewart Brand in 1985, and of the alt. groups created by John Gilmore (Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder) and Brian Reid in 1987, both in the San Francisco Bay Area, illustrate new territories of free speech on an electronic frontier under construction (Rheingold 1993; Dyson 1998).

Medical-Necessity Letters Written By Psychiatrists Can Be Decisive

Medical-Necessity Letters Written By Psychiatrists Can Be Decisive

ALGORITHMIC EMPOWERMENT OR IMPERIALIST WARFARE? DARK SKIN, AI CAMERA, AND A CHINESE COMPANY’S PATENT STRATEGY

Through document analysis and participant observation, this paper examines the patent strategy of Transsion, a Chinese company that dominates Africa’s smartphone market and a leading innovator in facial recognition technologies optimised for darker skins. We identify two major narratives surrounding Transsion’s facial recognition patent strategy. First is the “empowerment” narrative, in which Transsion argues that there are “blind spots” in conventional AI camera technologies and interprets its AI camera as not just a fix to existing blindness but also an empowerment tool for dark-skinned users by “seeing” and capturing their beauty. While the “empowerment” narrative is more externally oriented, Transsion uses a “warfare” narrative to interpret its patent strategy internally. This may have to do with cut-throat market competition, patents race, and the rapid pace of innovation, which gave Transsion a strong sense of crisis. Other major Chinese brands are also entering the African market. Transsion thus considers its facial recognition patents as “competitive weaponry” in preparation for a future clash in Africa’s smartphone market. This study makes three contributions. Empirically, through document analysis and participant observation, we examine a relatively less known Chinese smartphone company that has made huge impact in the Global South. Theoretically, we shed on the possibility of algorithmic empowerment against racist facial recognition systems, although developing AI as a weaponry, in the Chinese-African contexts, may also lead to new forms of imperialism. Thematically, echoing this year’s AoIR conference theme, this study reveals the politics and geopolitics of independence through patents.

The Quintessential Role of the Soil: A Postcolonial Reading of Shadrach Ambanasom’s Son of the Native Soil and Wilson Katiyo’s A Son of the Soil

This paper entitled, “The Importance of the Soil: A Postcolonial Reading of Shadrach Ambanasom’s Son of the Native Soil and Wilson Katiyo’s A Son of the Soil demonstrates the importance of the soil which raises conflicts as well as generates wealth. The problem posed is that the soil, which is an empowerment tool, stimulates conflicts as agents desire socio-economic and political control. Such conflicts slow development and relegate the weak in both national and global affairs. The bond of contention evoked here is that socio-economic and political powers are secured through oppressive means which leave societies in chaos and stagnation. Some tenets of postcolonial theory will be used as a theoretical guide for analysis in this paper. Findings reveal that the soil has the ability to stimulate both prosperity and poverty that reinforce binaries. The paper concludes that, the expansion of the agricultural sector is fundamental to meet needs of a fast growing population. If the improvement of the soil is neglected, conflicts in societies risk to be increased resulting to high mortality rate caused by war and famine.

Complex factors and educational tools for social change and empowerment for severely marginalized Nepalese women working in hospitality and tourism

Educated and skilled women are active change agents. This paper focuses on informal hospitality education as a tool for social change and empowerment for severely marginalized Nepalese women. Studied over 18 months, a small group of women cooking for a boutique local and international tourist market in Kathmandu participated in cookery skills training. The Australian educator/researchers focused on the educational experience to uptake and retention of cookery skills and technical language. As a result of the educational intervention, changes in personal attributes and perceptions of inherent sociocultural gender roles/caste emerged. Participation in the cookery skills training program contributed partially as a catalyst that improved confidence, communication skills and exposed to the women pathways toward self-sustainability, emancipation and empowerment within an often-hostile working environment for women from severely disadvantaged backgrounds in Nepal.

Positive Deviance Traits and Social Entrepreneurship for Women Empowerment Amid COVID-19

Purpose: The threat of the COVID-19 pandemic persists despite concerted global efforts to contain it. So also is its impact on social entrepreneurs. One of the main questions being, what is the extent to which small businesses overcome the imminent economic recession amid the threat of COVID-19? Many small businesses have already closed operations due to the countrywide lockdown in India and the resultant cash flow constraints. The government has introduced loan guarantee schemes as a way of support, but it is not sufficient for operational expenses. This study examines the survival traits of positive deviance and social entrepreneurial roles that may be pertinent to women’s empowerment, concerning the challenges that have emerged from the pandemic. Methodology: Case study methodology was adopted, engaging Rosenblatt’s Transactional Theory to collect qualitative data, which are part of the narratives based on the experiences of a focus group within the social entrepreneurial venture, called Pipal Tree, while a descriptive approach was deployed to isolate and analyze the relevant survival traits, that is, leadership, multidimensional resourcefulness, altruism, innovation, norm-violation and labelling/stigmatization. Findings: The findings revealed that every trait—that is, leadership, multidimensional resourcefulness, altruism, innovation, norm-violation, and labelling/stigmatization—could potentially play an important role and contribute towards the sustainability of social entrepreneurs to empower women amidst the pandemic. The paper observed that ultimately this insight might be relevant to social entrepreneurs, managers and policymakers in developing effective survival strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originality values: This is a conceptualization and empirically based study that engaged in primary data collection, analysis and interpretation supported with literature evidence. As well as insights on the literature and methodology development, its unique contributions also include conceptualizing the phenomenon and strategy development. Additionally, it promotes diversity and inclusivity, as well as highlighting inequality. Social implication/Practical values: This study can serve as a guide towards addressing social issues relating to global social entrepreneurship policy-making. As such, it would be a powerful tool for women empowerment, policymakers, not-for-profit organizations, civil society and social entrepreneurs in the post-COVID-19 global environment. Theoretical contributions: This study has added the literature to the existing theory relating to social deviance, social entrepreneurship and women empowerment, thereby advancing knowledge. Highlighting issues about how humanity responds to this strange new threat from the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to saving lives. The new knowledge gained will often equip social entrepreneurs to capture new ways of survival (innovative ways) in complex and new challenges to cope with post-COVID-19 socio-economic circumstances. These benefits gained may be beneficial not only in Jharkhand India but nationally as well as globally. The authors also made an addition to the definition of positive deviance. Practical contributions: The study contributes towards enabling social entrepreneurs to cope in uncertain situations, which is critical to survival most challenging or crises and not just in entrepreneurship—so in critical decision-making, problem-solving, diversity management, gender equity, human rights advancement through women empowerment, business setting and expansion, in helping weakness into strengths and ensuring a level playing ground and inclusivity. Women empowerment can be a positive strength in policy formulation and implementation processes. These kinds of reflections from the perspective of women are significant, relevant and valuable in a post-pandemic environment across the Jharkhand India region and are transferable elsewhere across the globe.

Feminine Frequencies

This article recounts a critical conversation between two Black British sound women, conducted by a Black British female scholar. Together DJ Ade and Junie Rankin (real names Lynda Rosenior-Patten and June Reid) form Nzinga Soundz, one of the UK’s longest running, all-women sound systems. Thali Lotus owns and runs CAYA Sound System, established and built in 2016 with the aim of promoting reggae music as an educational, charitable, entertaining and entrepreneurial tool. Resulting from an extensive double interview conducted by Dr Monique Charles, leading scholar on grime and Black Atlantic performances, the piece offers an insight into issues of race, gender, knowledge transmission and use of technology as reflected in the work of two female reggae outputs. Combining the critical insight of a scholar with the self-reflection and self-articulation of music practitioners, the article explores the way in which the practice of reggae sound systems is constantly rearticulated as a work of art, business enterprise and tool of empowerment for oneself and the wider community in the British context.

Care in the context of disability: a tool for (in)dependence and (dis)empowerment

The aim of this study was to explore care in the context of disability as a tool to promote independence and empower disabled people. The study was based on the case of two women, Anna and Lena, who switched the roles of being either the cared-for or the one-caring. Data was collected with semi-structured interviews with the above mother and daughter. The participants discussed their experiences and feelings regarding the process of switching roles and taking responsibilities, the barriers to independence and autonomy, the implications of disability on the personal and family level, the process of adaptation to disability and their expectations for the future. It was found that switching roles had a twofold and oxymoron effect: on the one hand, a negative impact on the former one-caring’s self-esteem and level of dependence was observed and, on the other, a positive impact on the disabled daughter’s autonomy and independence occurred. Points of interest Providing care is a moral act, which involves the one-caring and the cared-for. Caring may generate power relations and mutual dependence. In the context of impairment, sometimes need for care may be unavoidable. For this reason, dependence of some disabled people on non-disabled others may be observed. In Cyprus, caring for disabled siblings is considered as a moral duty and a virtue of females. For this reason, some women may devote themselves to caring for disabled siblings to feel valued and worthy. Switching the roles between the one-caring and the cared-for may be beneficial for the latter, because becoming the one-caring may result to feeling independent, self-confident, and free from previous control. In contrast, becoming the cared-for was related to increased stress and difficulties to adapt to impairment, since the new role was interpreted as acceptance of being depended on others and thereby unwanted loss of power.