Empowerment: A Critique

161 Pages·2016·1.88 MB·English

by  Kenneth McLaughlin

Empowerment
‘Empowerment’ is a term in widespread use today and one that is often con-
sidered to be a self- evident good. Here, McLaughlin explores its emergence in
the 1960s through to its rise in the 1990s and ubiquity in present day discourse
and interrogates its social status, paying particular attention to social policy,
social work and health and social care discourse. He argues that a focus on
empowerment has superseded the notion of political subjects exercising power
autonomously.
This innovative volume:
• Discusses the relationship between concepts of empowerment and power, as
they have been understood historically.
• Analyses changes in the conception and meaning of empowerment in rela-
tion to the shifting social and political landscape.
• Acknowledges the positive impact empowerment strategies have had on
those who have campaigned to be empowered and also on those who have
seen their role as being to help empower others.
• Highlights ways in which talk about empowerment can actually work in
such a way as to further disempower those already marginalised.
Critically examining how ‘empowerment’ has become embedded in con-
temporary social and political life, this work offers a discussion of the term’s
multiple meanings, what it actually entails, and how it constructs and positions
those being empowered and those empowering.
Kenneth McLaughlin is Senior Lecturer in the Research Institute for Health
and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Routledge key themes in health and society
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Empowerment
A critique
Kenneth McLaughlin
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Empowerment
A critique
Kenneth McLaughlin
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 K. McLaughlin
The right of Kenneth McLaughlin to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-i n-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
McLaughlin, Kenneth, author.
Empowerment : a critique / Kenneth McLaughlin.
p. ; cm. – (Routledge key themes in health and society)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
I. Title. II. Series: Routledge key themes in health and society.
[DNLM: 1. Health Policy. 2. Truth Disclosure. 3. Power (Psychology)
4. Public Policy. 5. Social Work. WA 525]
RA418
362.1–dc23 2015031877
ISBN: 978-1-138-81961-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-74433-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 Power in modernity 7
2 Power in postmodernity 23
3 From power to empowerment 38
4 Empowerment and social work 53
5 From consciousness- raising to awareness-r aising 65
6 Advocacy research and social policy 76
7 From public health to personal empowerment 89
8 The politics of nudge: empowerment by subterfuge 105
Conclusion: the subject of empowerment 124
References 129
Index 144
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank those who have read and commented on various chapters
of this book as it developed: Josie Appleton, Concetta Banks, Martin King, Ann
McLaughlin, Rachel Robbins, Sandy Starr, Gemma Yarwood and Chris Yianni.
As ever, I owe a great debt to Ian Parker for his help and advice as the book pro-
gressed and for his feedback on an earlier draft.
This book would have been unlikely to have been completed without the time
made available to me by Comast. A word of thanks is therefore due to all the
children and parents who, like myself, spend a considerable amount of their time
at MAC, where most of this book was written, and who have kept me company
both mornings and evening as I worked on it – you know who you are.
In the course of writing this book I have reproduced extracts from some of
my earlier academic work: McLaughlin, K. (2014) ‘Empowering the People:
“Empowerment” and the British Journal of Social Work, 1971–99’, Critical and
Radical Social Work, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 203–216 (by permission of The Policy
Press); McLaughlin, K. (2015) ‘Advocacy Research and Social Policy: Action
for Children and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
as Case Studies’, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 35,
issue 3/4, pp. 239–251 (by permission of Emerald Group Publishing). I also owe
a thank you to all the team at the online political and current affairs magazine
Spiked (www.spiked- online.com), where I first articulated many of the thoughts
and ideas that influenced the development of this book.
Introduction
Background
‘I want to empower people.’ This is a common reply when I ask prospective
social work students why they want to become a social worker. The choice of
terminology is revealing in that it is reflective of changes within both social work
and politics in the contemporary period. In using the specific word ‘empower-
ment’ prospective students indicate that they have at least prepared for interview
by reading some relevant material; the term pervades the social work literature,
with books, articles and various organisational statements routinely declaring
that they are in the business of ‘empowering’ people. The value of, and need to,
empower people has also become part of the party political process, promoted
by New Labour during its years in power and is now also embraced by the UK
Prime Minister David Cameron as being a natural part of a Conservative
approach to government (Cameron, 2009).
These developments were encapsulated in a 2012 interview in the UK
Guardian newspaper with Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow. Ms
Creasy sees her political role as one in which she gives power and authority to
individuals and groups within society (Aitkenhead, 2012). The example she
gives is of her decision to get eight of her constituents, who needed new cookers,
to buy them collectively as this would reduce the price. Now, that may be a wise
and commendable thing to do, but is such a micro issue really the role of an MP
as opposed to a more organic community group?1 Reading this interview in the
same week that I had spent several days interviewing prospective students got
me thinking about why this term was so popular and from where it emerged. A
cursory search of the archives of the British Journal of Social Work, arguably
the United Kingdom’s most prestigious social work academic publication,
revealed that the term was one rarely mentioned in the journal during the first
two decades of its existence (1971–1990). Today, by contrast, the term prolifer-
ates within social work discourse. Initially, it was this aspect of the concept that
was the intended focus of my investigation.
I soon began to realise that whilst empowerment’s use within social work was
a very important area to investigate, in many respects this was but one of many
areas within which similar strategies emphasising behaviour change for citizens