Connected Communities

Power in Community: A Research and Social Action Scoping Review

Professor Jenny Pearce

P O W E R I N C O M M U N I T Y : A R E S E A R C H A N D S O C I A L A C T I O N S C O P I N G R EV I E W

Power in Community: A Research and Social Action Scoping Review

Professor Jenny Pearce

Executive Summary
This Scoping Review explores the academic debate on power and talks with communities about power. At a time when the state is proposing to disengage from society and hand power to communities, it reviews power in communities. The academic debate points to a paradigm shift in understanding power, from power over to power to. Although not all power over is dominating power, the latter remains the conventional form of power in practice. In talking to a range of groups in four socially varied communities across the north of England, it became clear that amongst those seeking change at the grass roots, most understand power in non dominating forms, as about cooperation, listening, sharing and enabling others. Non dominating forms of power, it is argued, offer the best potential for building participation and connecting communities. However, they are not the most effective for acting on power. Those who use them reject the way power is conventionally exercised and can end up acting on the margins and giving up expectations of wider impacts. The Scoping Review asks, therefore, how can non dominating forms of power become effective in changing power and power structures without reproducing dominating power?

Researchers and Project Partners

Lisa Cumming, Liz Firth, Mandy Wilson

Key words
Power, community, power theories, dominating power, non dominating power, empowerment, transforming power

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Introduction
This scoping review focuses on two concepts with strong practical as well as theoretical dimensions: power and community. Both remain highly contested, subject to meanings and practices which shift shape and significance over time. At present we are riding the cusp of a wave of interest in community. Paradoxically, this coincides with a a similar high point in the emphasis on individuals. Foucault traced the latter back to an active process of individualizing , which began with the rise of the power of states in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Foucault, 2002:332) and a tricky combination in the same political structures of individualization techniques and of totalization procedures (ibid). In the last two decades of the 20th century, this individualization process acquired a whole new dimension as the state disengaged from its previous regulatory and socially interventionist guise. These days, wrote Zygmunt Bauman in his 2001 book on Community (Bauman, 2001:41), domination does not rest primarily on engagementand-commitment; on the capacity of rulers to watch closely the movements of the ruled and to coerce them into obedience. It has acquired a new, much less troublesome and less costly - since requiring little servicing - foundation: in the uncertainty of the ruled as to what move, if any, their rulers may make next. Thinking community in the age of uncertainty and enhanced individualisation requires, it is argued, distinct approaches. This paper suggests that, in particular, the idea of power needs to be revisited in such a context. What would a society of more dispersed loci and forms of power look like? Theoretically, we need to review where the debate on power has reached by the early decades of the 21st century. Has our conceptual understanding of power and knowledge of the mechanisms of power given us new tools commensurate with the proposed reconfiguration of relationships between state and society? Empirically, we need better data on how power is understood in communities and how it shapes relationships within and between communities as well as in relation to powerful state and market actors. At the same time as the state proposes a new phase of disengagement, it acknowledges that an atomised society is almost as problematic as a state driven one. Communities, like civil society at the dawn (1980s-1990s) of what Bauman calls, the times of disengagement (Bauman, 2001:39), are expected to supply the missing social glue in the individualising logic. However, this is to be a self adhesive variety rather than dispensed by the state. Self-adhesive social interactions nevertheless, raise the question of power as starkly as when the state first emerged to organise society. The empowerment of communities, in other words, poses as many potential problems as the empowerment of states did at the dawn of modernity. With that in mind, this Scoping Review has reviewed the academic literature on power in order assess how it helps us to frame questions about power in community. It explores the intellectual shift from power over to power to; from power as emanating from an agent in a dichotomy of powerful and powerless to power as part of our social order, creative of our subjectivities but disposing us to reconfirm that social order. It discusses those theories which suggest we can in fact act on power and the emergence of ideas of

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empowerment and the design of tools to enable us to analyse power. Finally it turns to communities themselves. The second part of this paper is based on Power Talks with participants from four very diverse communities in the north of England. The surprising outcome of these community Power Talks was that our participants were deeply aware that their own understanding of power was at odds with the exercise of power by those who they felt limited their capacity to act and influence their communities. It was their sense of power as about sharing, listening, addressing conflict and fostering cooperation which stood out in the conversations. A non dominating form of power was not a normative ideal, but something in practice they aspired to and exercised as best they could. However, it is very hard for them to influence those in power or who have power in their communities or over their communities. Dominating power over is convincing and conventional for many because it appears to offer an effective route to action and change. Any alternative perspective has therefore to ask, how can non dominating forms of power be equally effective without reproducing dominating power?

The Academic Debate. Power- Over to Power- to: A Paradigm Shift?

There has been a significant shift in the academic debate on power since the 1950s. As Peter Morriss writes in the introduction to the second edition of his 1987 book on Power (Morriss, 1987:xiii): It is now also probably the dominant view that power is best thought of as a capacity or disposition of some sort, and that power-to is more basic than power-over. He himself argues, correctly, that we do need to hang onto both concepts. However, while the conceptual debate may have opened up the space for new approaches to power, we are, I would argue, very far away from a view of power as capacity to act and cooperate with others becoming intuitive and pervasive. Power as domination remains the most commonly used form of power, unequally distributed and thus exclusionary and limiting of participation. Rather than a paradigm shift, we have seen a rebalancing in the academic understanding of power which is slowly filtering its way into the social psyche, but too slowly yet to fundamentally change that psyche and certainly not the form in which power is exercised. In the meantime, while power over is not equivalent to dominating power, I would argue that it is the latter form of power which still makes it difficult for other forms to be exercised, although we have a much more sophisticated analysis of how power works in society. The shift from asking who has power? to how is power exercised? opened up the idea of power as the capacity to act. The idea that power is part of what society is, was a way of taking power away from the dominating power wielding agent over others. The focus on the agency of the latter has tended to generate an unhelpful dichotomy between the powerful and the powerless and a sense of power as negative. A range of ideas from Foucault to Bourdieu and Giddens to Wartenberg, Hayward and Haugaard, despite differences amongst them, have helped us understand how power is part of our social world, and works to structure our subjectivity, actions and relations. Powerlessness is less about lack of power in these readings, than about the tacit consensus of the

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dominated (Haugaard, 2002:227) to the expectations of others that they have no power. These ideas open up the possibilities of action on structures and social orders which condition or predispose people to tacitly accept and reconfirm what Bourdieu (2004:132-133) calls the habitus. We are not actually doomed to being either predetermined by structures or determined by agents in our capacities to act on the world. We can use power to unconfirm social orders.

From Empowerment to Transforming Power

We are not powerless, but we cannot underestimate the difficulties of changing the script that makes us think we are. This has led a number of authors to focus on the empowerment of others, and to develop tools to enable people, particularly in disadvantaged settings to analyse power. However, empowerment without unpacking the idea of power itself, is no guarantee that the powerless will use power differently to the powerful. For those interested in change, it is intuitive to strengthen the so-called powerless against the so-called powerful. In practical politics, power not only appears to have a face in the form of individuals who exercise power over but also because organising people for change is often easier when there is a face. Hard power over remains the conventional understanding of how power operates and ultimately is seen as the only power which would enable the powerless to collectively act for change, despite the rich theoretical debate which has opened up other possible ways of understanding power. Acting on power itself and extending the boundaries to fields of social action without reproducing that hard power suggests a step beyond empowerment to transforming power. However, is this any more than a normative ideal? This question brings us not just to how communities might act collectively towards the powerful , but whether and how they act collectively amongst themselves?

Power in Community
This question had to be approached empirically not just theoretically. Originally, the intention had been develop tools for discussing power with communities. However, the tools seemed to assume some ideas about power which we preferred to explore. The emphasis seemed to be on the powerful/powerless relationship, whereas we wanted to also research the social nature of power flows within as well as between communities and the powerful. The Power Talks ended up being open ended discussions, in which the community members really drove the discussion along the lines they chose. There has been relatively little discussion of power in community, although the academic discussion of power was originally generated through community power studies. However, the emphasis has been on the communitys power vis a is external powerholders, perpetrating a myth of egalitarianism (Brent, 2009: 27). We chose four communities where we would talk with selected groups and individuals about their understanding of power. We chose a diverse range of communities in order to see

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whether ideas of power differ in different social contexts. Most of the people we talked to were selected because they were engaged in some kind of action process. Our communities were an ethnically mixed community in Broomhall, Sheffield, a mostly Pakistani community in Manningham, Bradford; a traditionally white estate in Keighley; and the largely white relatively more affluent community of Queensbury in Bradford. Our stories from community activists and residents in our four areas highlight how complex our communities are. These are not homogenous, egalitarian social spaces where people are just waiting for the government to hand over power so that they can pursue pre-formed agendas. All of our participants in our Power Talks included people who have undergone significant social and economic changes which have disrupted their lives and often created fragmented social landscapes, with young people in particular struggling to find their way in the world and often ending up in trouble. The poorest, most ethnically diverse communities showed the greatest sense of community activity. But this was also fragmented. Extending the boundaries of freedom for social action was very difficult while traditional authority structures limited the exercise of agency and young people in particular found no voice either within those structures or within those of the modern local state and political activity. In these contexts, those who managed to question power and its exercise ended up often in mediating roles, enabling those who feel powerless to trust that someone is connecting them to the world of the powerful. Addressing conflicts and social problems in communities becomes difficult without trusted mediators, and these individuals, who were committed to not reproducing dominating power, played an important community role. However, many found it difficult to impact on power and power structures.. Most had become accustomed to seeing change in terms of ripples and drips. Yet in the midst of this, what is striking about the discussions, is how everyone we talked to remained convinced that power was not about dominating the other. Non dominating forms of power was without exception the kind of power everyone aspired to: Enabling others, sharing with others, listening to others, opening things up to benefit the community, being honest and honourable towards fellow citizens and basing their power on respect. Many also talked about authority. They say sources of authority are declining (eg parental authority) and this worries them; or traditional authorities remain intact but block change. They often saw their understanding of power as connected to a view of authority, as something earned not given as a result of ascriptive status. Authority did not always imply power but it did rest on respect. Natural leaders emergent from community contexts commanded respect because of how they behaved and acted towards others. They were not necessarily expected to exercise power. I conclude from these Power Talks, that a non dominating form of power does exist in practice. While most people are also very aware of dominating power, they question many of the attributes which enable dominating power to be legitimate, including when it is rooted in time honoured authority structures. Nevertheless, everyone in our Power Talks found it hard to translate their non dominating exercise of power into an impact on the world. Here we reach the big challenge identified in this Scoping Review. How

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might this form of power become effective without reproducing the dominating form of power it rejects?

Conclusion
The juxtaposition of powerful state and powerless community is a very limiting view of power in community. However, the other forms of power we found in our communities were limited in enabling action on power structures or power itself. Those who exercise those forms, often end up choosing to be on the periphery, or they are forced to take a long view of change and accept the ephemeral nature of power. They talked of change in terms of ripples and drips. Sometimes, individuals emerge who navigate well between the worlds of those who see themselves as powerful and those who see themselves a powerless. But changing the way power is seen and understood is elusive. Making non dominating power effective remains a challenge. But arguably, this is precisely what could enable the poor to act on the world in ways which construct community as something shared, cooperative yet able to handle conflict. Such a form of power would generate its own authority to build social orders based on values and norms which encourage people to find their own place in the world and to act for the good of all.

Future Research
Two clear lines of future enquiry emerge from this Scoping Review. The review explored various potential sources of making non dominating power effective, such as how ideas of immanent authority of a sister AHRC scoping review might strengthen such a form of power; Hannah Arendts ideas of consent and meaningful communication, and Freires ideas of Conscientization, this is an area which merits much theoretical as well as empirical attention. Secondly, we need more empirical study of power in community. How communities understand and practice power and how this impacts on their internal dynamics and their relationships with other communities, the market and the state.

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References and external links

Power Alinsky, S. (1971reprinted 1989) Rules for Radicals New York:Vintage Books Arendt, H. (2000) What is Authority? in Baehr, P. (ed.)The Portable Hannah Arendt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, pp.462-507 Arendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition. Chicago:University of Chicago Press Arendt, H. (1970) On Violence San Diego and New York:Harvest Books Barnes, B. (2002) The Nature of Power in Haugaard, M. Power:A Reader Manchester: Manchester University PRess:116-131 Bauman, Z. and Haugaard, M. (2008) Liquid Modernity and Power: A dialogue with Zygmunt Bauman Journal of Power Vol. 1, No.2, August 111-130 Beetham, D.,Blick, A.Margetts, H. and Weir,S. (2008) Power and Participation in Modern Britain: A Literature Review Democratic Audit, Carnegie UK Trust http://filestore.democraticaudit.com/file/573983264be017b6c55df173f9b4347b1282655557/pp_lowres.pdf Downloaded 31 October 2011 Bercowe, C. (2011) Life, Objectivity and the Conditions of Authority Authority Research Network. available from http://www.authorityresearch.net/working-papers.html downloaded 31 October 2011. Bourdieu, P. (2004 ) Social Space and Symbolic Power in Bourdieu, P. In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology Cambridge:Polity Press Bourdieu (1990) The Logic of Practice Stanford:Stanford University Press Butler, J. (1997) The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection Stanford:Stanford University Press Cox, L. (2011) Powercube: Understanding Power for Social Change Journal of Political Power 4:2:301-307 Clegg, S. (1989)Frameworks of Power (1989, reprinted 2002) Londong:Sage Dahl, R. (1974, 2005 second edition) Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City New Haven and London:Yale University Press Dahl, R. (1968) Power reprinted from Sills, D. (ed) The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences , vol. 12: 405-415 in Haugaard, M. (2002)Power: A Reader Manchester: Manchester University Press, 8-25 Dahl, R.(1989) Democracy and Its Critics New Haven and London: Yale University Press

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Foucault, M. The Subject and Power, in Faubion, J. (ed) (2002)Michel Foucault, Power, Essential Works of Foucault 1954 -1984 Volume 3 . London: Penguin Books pp.326-348 Freire,P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed Harmondsworth: Penguin Freire, P. (1974 republished 2005) Education and Conscientizacao in Freire, P. Education for Critical Consciousness London:Continuum Friedman, J. (1992) Empowerment: The Politics of Alternative Development Oxford:Blackwell Hanssen, B. (1997) On the Politics of Pure Means in Vries,de H. and Weber, S. Violence, Identity and Self Determination California:Stanford University Press:236-52 Hayward, C and Lukes, S. (2008) Nobody to Shoot? Power, structure and agency: A dialogue Journal of Power Vol 1 No.1 April, 5-20 Hayward, Clarrissa Rile (2000) De-Facing Power Cambridge:Cambridge University Press Haugaard, M (ed)( 2002) Power: A Reader Manchester, Manchester University Press Haugaard, M. (2003) Reflections on Seven Ways of Creating Power, European Journal of Social Theory, 6 (1): 87-113 Haugaard, M. (2008) Power and Habitus, Journal of Power 1:2: 189-206 Haugaard M. (2010) Power: A Family Resemblance concept in European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13-419-438 Hunjan, Raji & Keophilavong, S. (2010) Power and Making Change Happen London: Carnegie UK Trust Gaventa, J. (1980) Power and Powerlessness:Quiescence and Rebellion in an Applachian Valley Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press Gaventa, J. (2006) Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis IDS Bulletin, Power Volume 37, Number 6, November:23-33 Gaventa, J. and Pettit, J. (2011) A Response to Powercube: understanding power for social change Journal of Political Power 4:2:309-316 Jenkins R. (2008) Erving Goffman: A Major Theorist of Power? Journal of Power Vol. 1, No. 2 August, 157-168 Giddens, A. (1984, reprinted, 2004) The Constitution of Society Cambridge: Polity Kane, L. (2001) Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America London:Latin America Bureau Lasswell, H.D. and Kaplan, A. (1950) Power and Society New Haven:Yale University Press

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Lukes, S. (1974, second edition 2005) May, R. (1974) Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Power London:Souvenir Press Mennell, S. (2007).The American civilizing process Cambridge: Polity Miller, J.B.(1992) Women and Power in Wartenberg, T. (ed) Rethinking Power Albany: State University of New York:240-248 Millet, K. (1970) Sexual Politics New York:Double Day Narayan, D. (2002) Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook Washington:The World Bank Polsby, N. (1960) How to Study Community Power. Journal of Politics 22:474-484 Ricci, D. (1980) Receiving Ideas in Political Analysis: The Case of the Community Power Studies 1950-1970. Western Political Quaterly 33:451-75 Rowlands, J. (1997) Questioning Empowerment:Working with Women in Honduras Oxford:Oxfam Publications Scott, J. (2001) Power Cambridge:Polity Sennett, R. (1980) Authority London: Faber and Faber VeneKlasen, L., and Miller, V.(2002a) Power and Empowerment PLA Notes 43: 39:41 VeneKlasen, L., and Miller, V. (2002b)A New Weave of People, Power and Politics: the Action Guide for Advocacy and Citizen Participation Oklahoma:World Neighbours Wartenberg, T.(1990)The Forms of Power : From Domination to Transformation Philadelphia:Temple University Press Wartenberg, T. (1988) The Concept of Power in Feminist Theory Praxis International Issue 3:301-316 Wartenberg, T. (1992) Situated Social Power in Wartenberg, T. ed. (1992) Rethinking Power Albany: State University of New York:79-101 Wrong, D.(1995, reprinted 2009) Power:Its Forms, Bases and Uses New Brunswick and London:Transaction Publishers

Power Analysis Tools Carnegie UK Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2010) Power and Making Change Happen Carnegie Uk Trust:Dunfermline

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Institute of Development Studies Powerpack: Tools for Analysing Social Change www.powercube.net downloaded 31 October 2011 Just Associates Tools for Analysing Power www.justassociates.org/toolsforanalyzingpower.doc downloaded 31/10/2011 Oxfam (2011) Improving Programme Design with Power Analysis Tools: The Power Cube within Oxfam GB Programme Design in Guatemala June, LAC region, Oxford:Oxfam Sida (2006)Power Analysis Experience and Challenges, Stockholm: Sida www.sida.se/publications Tew, J. (2011) Social Approaches to Mental Distress. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan

Community Bauman, Z. (2001) Community. Cambridge:Polity Press Bell, C. and Newby, H. (1971) Community Studies: An Introduction to the sociology of the local community London:Allen and Unwin Brent, J. (2009) Searching for Community: Representation, power and action on an urban estate, Bristol: The Policy Press Cohen, A.(1985) The Symbolic Construction of Community Crow, G. and Allen, G. (1994) Community Life: An Introduction to Local Social Relations Harlow: Pearson Education Diers, J. (2004) Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way Washington:University of Washington Press Young, M. and Willmott, P. Family and Kinship in East London: Penguin Books Truman, D. (1951) The Governmental Process New York: Knopf; Hunter, F. (1963) Community Power Structure New York: Doubleday Wright Mills,(1956) The Power Elite New York: Oxford University Press Dahl, T. (1961, reprinted, 2005) Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press Nelson Polsby (1963) Community Power and Political Theory New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963); Domhoff, G. (1967) Who Rules America? Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall

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Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M. (1970) Power and Poverty NewYork: Oxford University Press, Crenson, M. (1971) The Un-Politics of Air Pollution Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Schultze, R.O. (1958) Economic Dominants and Community Power Structure. American Journal of Sociology, 23, 3-9 Miller, D. (1958) Decision Making Cliques in Community Power Structure, American Journal of Sociology, 64, 299-310

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The Connected Communities

Connected Communities is a cross-Council Programme being led by the AHRC in partnership with the EPSRC, ESRC, MRC and NERC and a range of external partners. The current vision for the Programme is: to mobilise the potential for increasingly inter-connected, culturally diverse, communities to enhance participation, prosperity, sustainability, health & well-being by better connecting research, stakeholders and communities. Further details about the Programme can be found on the AHRCs Connected Communities web pages at: www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/connectedcommunities.aspx