Evaluating empowerment: A framework with cases from Latin America

Petesch, Patti; Smulovitz, Catalina; Walton, Michael

doi:10.1037/e597202012-003

Cited by 30 publications

(39 citation statements)

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“…Although agency is an important component of empowerment, it would be wrong to see agency as synonymous with empowerment (Drydyk, 2008). The ability to perform as an agent is not equivalent to the achievement of desired outcomes (Petesch et al, 2005). Even if individuals have the ability to visualize options and make choices, they may not be capable of using this agency efficiently and may be inhibited by the formal and informal institutional environments within which they function -the so-called opportunity structure (Alsop and Heinsohn, 2005;Ibrahim and Alkire, 2007).…”

Section: Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it is problematic to consider agency as synonymous with empowerment (Drydyk, 2008). It is important to understand that the ability to perform as an agent is not equivalent to the achievement of desired outcomes (Petesch et al, 2005). Even when people have the ability to visualize options and make choices, they may not be capable of using their agency effectively and may be inhibited by their opportunity structure.…”

Section: Empowerment Agency and Opportunity Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This analytical framework combines all the components of empowerment that have been discussed by various scholars (Long, 1999;Khwaja, 2005;Narayan, 2005;Petesch et al, 2005;Long and Jinlong, 2009). The use of this framework offers innovative insights to the literature on empowerment because it distinguishes between various degrees of empowerment at various domains and emphasizes on the importance of the dual relationship between agency and opportunity structure.…”

Section: Contribution To Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Petesch et al (2005) argue that one's opportunity structure is influenced by three major factors: the accountability of institutions, the performance of groups in power, and the implementation capacity of the state. These three factors combined represent the contexts and opportunities that shape individuals' and groups' capacities to participate, influence, and hold institutions liable (Petesch et al, 2005). As such, agency and opportunity structure have a mutual relationship that leads to different degrees of empowerment.…”

Section: Empowerment Agency and Opportunity Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, the opportunity structure refers to the institutional environment that comprises the formal and informal contexts within which the actors function (Alsop and Heinsohn, 2005;Ibrahim and Alkire, 2007). Petesch et al (2005) argue that one's opportunity structure is influenced by three major factors: the accountability of institutions, the performance of groups in power, and the implementation capacity of the state. These three factors combined represent the contexts and opportunities that shape individuals' and groups' capacities to participate, influence, and hold institutions liable (Petesch et al, 2005).…”

Section: Empowerment Agency and Opportunity Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

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A glimmer of hope? : an assessment of vulnerability and empowerment in the coastal area of North Lebanon

Issa¹

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DEDICATIONThis work is dedicated to my family. To my wonderful father and mother, Tony and Amale, who sacrificed their lives to raise us and to give us the best education and opportunities in life. To my lovely siblings Vicky, Fahed, Micho, and Wally and my nieces Rita and Lara, for your unconditional love and for always being there for me. To my caring grandfathers, Abdel Nour and Fahed, for your great love and for teaching me how to be strong. You were always proud of me. I really wish you were still with us now. May your souls rest in peace. To my loving grandmothers, Najat and Nazek, strong and achiever women beyond all odds. You taught how to be patient and loving. To the rest of the family, thank you for being a great family and for being a source of love and happiness throughout the years. The relationship between outcomes and correlates of empowerment 67List of Tables Table 3.1 Research questions, steps, and methods 26 Table 4.1 Direct impacts resulting from different episodes of armed conflict 38 Table 4.2 Indirect impacts resulting from different episodes of armed conflict 42 Table 5.1 Indicators of physical and social vulnerability 52 Table 5.2 Social vulnerability Index for each of the five areas of the Lebanese northern coast 58 Table 6.1Indicators of Agency 68 Table 6.2 Indicators of Empowerment 69 Table 6.3 Authorities' equitability in addressing needs and concerns, and the influence of political and religious characteristics on the authorities' treatment of people 73 Table 6.4 Spearman's rho correlations between various variables within the public services delivery domain 74 Table 6.5Logistic regression to evaluate determinants of individual perceptions as to whether the way in which authorities treat people is affected by people's religion or political affiliation 76 Table 6.6 Spearman's rho correlations between various variables within the labor domain 78 Table 6.7Logistic regression to investigate determinants of individual perceptions of job security 79 Table 6.8Perception of involvement in Community decision-making processes 80 Table 6.9 Spearman's rho correlations between various variables within the community domain 81 The project aims to provide a longitudinal analysis of the impact of recurring armed conflict on the human-environment system in the region of North Lebanon using an interdisciplinary and integrative approach through combining different disciplines including social geography, political economy, ethnography, environmental and life science, and economics. The objective of this project is to highlight the processes of vulnerability, environmental mitigation and reconstruction, and trust relationships in these processes in the area of North Lebanon during and after conflict.The research was carried out at the Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability (CSTM) at the University of Twente, the Netherlands and the Institute of the Environment (IOE) at the University of Balamand, Lebanon. Both institutions provided exceptional academic and technical support which a...

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Section: Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Empowerment Agency and Opportunity Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Contribution To Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Empowerment Agency and Opportunity Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Empowerment Agency and Opportunity Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

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A glimmer of hope? : an assessment of vulnerability and empowerment in the coastal area of North Lebanon

Issa¹

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Understanding the pathways to women’s empowerment in Northern Ghana and the relationship with small-scale irrigation

Bryan

Garner

2022

Agric Hum Values

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Women’s empowerment is often an important goal of development interventions. This paper explores local perceptions of empowerment in the Upper East Region of Ghana and the pathways through which small-scale irrigation intervention targeted to men and women farmers contributes to women’s empowerment. Using qualitative data collected with 144 farmers and traders through 28 individual interviews and 16 focus group discussions, this paper innovates a framework to integrate the linkages between small-scale irrigation and three dimensions of women’s empowerment: resources, agency, and achievements. The relationship between the components of empowerment and small-scale irrigation are placed within a larger context of social change underlying these relationships. This shows that many women face serious constraints to participating in and benefitting from small-scale irrigation, including difficulties accessing land and water and gender norms that limit women’s ability to control farm assets. Despite these constraints, many women do benefit from participating in irrigated farming activities leading to an increase in their agency and well-being achievements. For some women, these benefits are indirect—these women allocate their time to more preferred activities when the household gains access to modern irrigation technology. The result is a new approach to understanding women’s empowerment in relation to irrigation technology.

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Empowerment, Deliberative Development, and Local-Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power

Gibson

Woolcock

2008

St Comp Int Dev

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The salience of the concept of "empowerment" has been deductively claimed more often than carefully defined or inductively assessed by development scholars and practitioners alike. We use evidence from a mixed methods examination of the Kecamatan (subdistrict) Development Project (KDP) in rural Indonesia, which we define here as development interventions that build marginalized groups' capacity to engage local-level governing elites using routines of deliberative contestation. "Deliberative contestation" refers to marginalized groups' practice of exercising associational autonomy in public forums using fairness-based arguments that challenge governing elites' monopoly over public resource allocation decisions. Deliberative development interventions such as KDP possess a comparative advantage in building the capacity to engage because they actively provide open decision-making spaces, resources for argumentation (such as facilitators), and incentives to participate. They also promote peaceful resolutions to the conflicts they inevitably spark. In the KDP conflicts we analyze, marginalized groups used deliberative contestation to moderately but consistently shift local-level power relations in contexts with both low and high preexisting capacities for managing St Comp Int Dev (2008) 43:151-180 were key members of the research team and played an integral role in developing the ideas explored here. Other field-level researchers provided ideas throughout the study. We are also indebted to Scott Guggenheim and Ruth Alsop for their active support and feedback, and to Dan Biller, Patrick Barron, and three anonymous referees for helpful comments. The views are those of the authors, and should not be attributed to the organizations with which they are affiliated.conflict. By contrast, marginalized groups in non-KDP development conflicts from comparable villages used "mobilizational contestation" to generate comparatively erratic shifts in power relations, shifts that depended greatly on the preexisting capacity for managing conflict.

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Evaluating empowerment: A framework with cases from Latin America

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

A glimmer of hope? : an assessment of vulnerability and empowerment in the coastal area of North Lebanon

A glimmer of hope? : an assessment of vulnerability and empowerment in the coastal area of North Lebanon

Understanding the pathways to women’s empowerment in Northern Ghana and the relationship with small-scale irrigation

Empowerment, Deliberative Development, and Local-Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power

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