Reflections on power… Based on M. Haugaard, Reflections on seven ways of creating power.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Why talk about power? Advancing women’s rights and promoting gender equality requires a transformation of gendered power relations A rights-based approach to development calls for a re-balancing of power relations: between aid agencies and recipients between duty-bearers and rights-holders empowering marginalised groups

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Why talk about power? Un-packing how power is created may suggest how existing power relations can be changed To make visible our existing theories of power so we can critique them, expand them, apply them Development agencies and development workers are implicated in power relations – gender mainstreaming and RBA call for critical self- reflection and redistribution of power within development

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Different views on power Coercive power: ability to compel people to do things through punishment (or threat of punishment) or reward Power as created through social order: social order enables individuals to do things they could not do if they were not part of society it also imposes constraints establishes relations of power and powerlessness Power created and reproduced through social order backed up by the threat of coercion.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands How is social power created? 1.Power created by social order – a system of shared meanings which give predictability to social life. predictability gives ‘power to’ act – we know what to do in order to achieve a particular result culturally specific a process of social relations – action/reaction unless an action is acknowledged and supported by others it may not be effective

Amsterdam, The Netherlands How is social power created? 2.Social order is maintained by imposing constraints – actions outside ‘the rules of the game’ are not supported Constraints maintain existing power relations: keep new issues off the agenda dis-empower groups associated with that issue Change = build a new consensus create arenas where new practices are recognised strategic alliances challenge acceptance of old practices

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Creating social power 3.Social order, and the resulting distribution of power, makes sense within the dominant paradigm or world view When an issue / action does not fit with the current world view, people may see no way to address it Change = paradigm shift

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Creating social power 4.Most of our knowledge of social life is ‘practical knowledge’, not conscious. Hence people participate in maintaining power relations that disadvantage them. when people become conscious of how unequal power relations are reproduced, they can choose not to support those practices. when unquestioned practices become visible they may also show them as incongruent with consciously held beliefs Change = consciousness raising

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Creating social power 5.Social conventions are ‘reified’ by the belief that they are more than social constructs: they are ‘natural’ they are determined by God they are scientifically true People may see that they are disadvantaged by a practice, but believe the practice cannot be changed.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands How is social power created? 6.Power created through socialisation ‘learning to be normal’ internalising social conventions creates the ‘practical knowledge’ that maintains the social order education system as a major actor in socialisation – gives legitimacy to routines / conventions

Amsterdam, The Netherlands Violence as a tool of power violence is the failure of social power (Arendt) necessary only when social power fails and people do not behave as expected but… violence / threat used more consistently to maintain gender relations – why? violence combined with social power = coercion people with less power prevented from challenging structures by the threat of violence