Pathways to Local Empowerment

Abstract

In this chapter we examine empowerment’s strategic pathways. These pathways are viewed as a five-point continuum that identify the organisational characteristics by which people move from individual experiences of power towards more collective forms of social and political action. The end result of such action may be a change in policy, legislation or even societal norms. We focus in this chapter on local empowerment, the identification of a community concern about which people share their ideas and experiences and engage in bringing about some form of personal, political and social change. As we move along the continuum of strategies, however, local empowerment’s translocal links to global issues and networks start to become apparent.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead, Anthropologist