This paper will highlight Maathai’s insights regarding empowerment, tracing several important themes in her approach, namely, empowerment’s relationship to self esteem, teamwork, and political action, its ambivalent relationship to formal education, and the role of cultural traditions in providing alternatives to colonial-era cultural impositions and current exploitative effects of neo-liberal capitalism. After reviewing Maathai’s thoughts on each of these topics, I will briefly draw upon other East African thinkers and Africanists’ studies of East African communities to present corroborating evidence for (...) Maathai’s views or for challenges to her position. Listening to the perspectives of Maathai and other East Africans provides several important correctives to current popular uses of the term “empowerment.”. (shrink)

This article constitutes a review of the concept of resistance in critical human rights education (CHRE) and its relevance for democratic education (DE). Our conceptual analysis draws on resistance studies, the emerging study of CHRE, and its implications for DE, which we suggest are interconnected. Although resistance is tied to the history of human rights, there is a lack of conceptual analysis, which we aim to remedy in this article. We argue that resistance is a core element of CHRE for (...) promoting democracy and teaching ethically complex topics on injustices. Our approach transcends the problematic forms of HRE which can limit the discourse, produce blind spots, and empty the critical and ethical content of education. We illustrate some of the complexities of resistance through failures to resist human rights violations in democracies, but also the potential of resistance in CHRE to challenge global injustices and promote democracy. (shrink)

Some take seriously the possibility of artificial intelligence (AI) takeover, where AI systems seize power in a way that leads to human disempowerment. Assessing the likelihood of takeover requires answering empirical questions about the future of AI technologies and the context in which AI will operate. In many cases, philosophers are poorly placed to answer these questions. However, some prior questions are more amenable to philosophical techniques. What does it mean to speak of AI empowerment and human disempowerment? And what (...) empirical claims must hold for the former to lead to the latter? In this paper, I address these questions, providing foundations for further evaluation of the likelihood of takeover. (shrink)

In this article I attempt a normative analysis of the relations between the ideal of democracy and the distribution of power. In particular, I suggest that democratic institutions and procedures, as they are generally understood, are not able per se to avoid domination. In line with the interpretation of domination that I propose, I claim that in order to promote an ideal of democracy as non-domination we need to take into account power inequalities present outside the political sphere. More specifically, (...) I suggest that the obtainment of a certain degree of equality in the distribution of social power should be understood as a procedural requirement for the realization of the democratic ideal. (shrink)

Natalie Stoljar posits that those who have internalized oppressive norms lack normative competence, which requires true beliefs and critical reflection. A lack of normative competence makes agents nonautonomous, according to Stoljar. This framework is thereby meant to address what she calls the “feminist intuition”—the intuition that oppressive norms are incompatible with autonomy. On my view, however, Stoljar’s normative competence account of autonomy is subject to a worrying problem. Her account misattributes nonautonomy to those who perpetrate the oppression, making those who (...) are oppressed and those who oppress count as equally nonautonomous. I argue that this is implausible and demonstrate in this paper that we can establish an asymmetry of autonomy between those who oppress others and those who are made the target of oppression. (shrink)

This chapter explores the different dimensions of domination, including whether it has a structural approach, its relation to race and imperialism, and how non-domination can be institutionalized and achieved at a global level.

The book addresses the broad issue of sustainability of our civilization and seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what many see as its systemic crisis. There is a broad agreement that new creative ideas, initiatives, and solutions are essential for dealing with the current problems. However, despite this recognition, we still know very little about the process of creation and how it works. As a result, our civilization fails to harness the enormous creative potential of humanity. This failure, (...) the book argues, is the main source of our current problems—languishing economy, deteriorating environment, continued violence, the deficit of democracy, and the lack of new fundamental breakthroughs in science. It examines some of these problems and demonstrates the connection between them and our failure to embrace the process of creation. The book offers a perspective that sheds light on the process of creation. It pays special attention to the theoretical contributions of Jean Piaget and the ongoing discussions of knowledge production that help us understand better how the process of creation works. The central argument of the book is that in order to solve our current problems and ensure the sustainability of our civilization well into the future we must embrace the process of creation and make it the central organizing principle of our social practice. Finally, the book provides an outline of the principal changes that the adoption of the new social practice organized around the process of creation will involve. (shrink)

Eve Sedgwick critiques paranoid methodologies for denying a plurality of affective approaches. Instead, she emphasizes affects such as hope, but her description of hope's openness does not address how hope can avoid discourses that appear to offer amelioration while deceptively masking subjugation. In this context, I will argue that suspicion in feminist political philosophy, as shown in the earlier work of Carole Pateman and Judith Butler, provides a cautious approach toward hope's openness without precluding hope altogether. This analysis will reconsider (...) the domination and empowerment debates in relation to affect, pointing toward compatibilities between the two perspectives. First, I will expand Sedgwick's analysis of hope to explain its potential as a feminist political affect. Second, I will examine the techniques of suspicion employed by Pateman and Butler and how they risk denying possibilities for hope. This will lead to a discussion of how Amy Allen's theory of power indicates that suspicion is compatible with hope. Finally, I will explain how the suspicious approaches of Pateman and Butler illuminate hope as an inherently risky, fragile project. This will show that suspicion does not necessarily take up the totalizing position of paranoia, but rather can productively ensure that hope is not led astray. (shrink)

There are several strategies to promote health in individuals and populations. Two general approaches to health promotion are behavior change and empowerment. The aim of this article is to present those two kinds of strategies, and show that the behavior-change approach has some moral problems, problems that the empowerment approach (on the whole) is better at handling. Two distinct ‘ideal types’ of these practices are presented and scrutinized. Behavior change interventions use various kinds of theories to target people’s behavior, which (...) they do through information, persuasion, coercion and manipulation. Empowerment is a collaborative method where those ‘facilitated’ participate in the change process. Some ethical problems with the behavior-change model are that it does not sufficiently respect the right to autonomy of the individuals involved and risks reducing their ability for autonomy, and that it risks increasing health inequalities. Empowerment, on the other hand, respects the participant’s right to autonomy, tends to increase the ability for autonomy, as well as increasing other coping skills, and is likely to reduce inequalities. A drawback with this approach is that it often takes longer to realize. (shrink)

In this article I will combine Erving Goffman’s sociology with some of the main aspects of Actor-Network Theory in order to outline a theatrical conception of social power. My first aim is to try to summarize the sociological perspective introduced by Kenneth Burke and then improved on by Erving Goffman to understand the face-to-face interactions of everyday life. Secondly, I will try to use the theatrical metaphor underlying this theoretical framework to describe power-over relations in everyday life. Thanks to the (...) combination of the dramaturgical theory proposed by Erving Goffman and the ‘object turn’ given to social theory by Actor-Network Theory, a theatrical conception of power allows the episodic, dispositional and systemic dimensions of power relations to be mapped respectively depending on the actors’ performances, their roles of power and the institutionalized scripts. Moreover, this theatrical representation of power-over relations is a defaced understanding of the phenomenon that enables us to investigate not only its different directional forms (power-to, -over and -with), but also their possible variants (empowerment, resistance, domination and solidarity). (shrink)

The article launches a conceptual argument against the suggestion that Christian fundamentalist women, having for religious reasons voluntarily chosen their subjugation, are not oppressed. The article also rebuts the related argument that Christian fundamentalism provides women with adequate means for subversive power. Instead, the article proposes that women within Christian fundamentalism are oppressed, because within Christian fundamentalism the very identity of ‘woman’ is construed as subjected, thus obliterating the possibility of choosing a non-subjected identity.

This article interrogates a key feature of anarchist education; focusing on a problem with implications not only for anarchist conceptions of education, but for anarchist philosophy and pra...

Most participatory strands of democratic theory hold a conception of the transformative potential of democratic participation. According to those theories, involvement in deliberative or decision-making processes makes better citizens by teaching them political skills and orienting them towards the common good. This article draws from original interviews with residents of housing coops to argue that this phenomenon can also be found outside formal decision-making forums, in menial and quotidian tasks undertaken for the preservation and maintenance of the organization. Using the (...) political theory of Mary Parker Follett, we suggest that involvement in practical concrete activities is an overlooked but significant element of democratic life. Residents of the coops we studied grew ‘power-with’ by joining others in accomplishing everyday tasks, such as blowing snow, gardening, or fixing shelves, and this collective power made them feel responsible for the organization they were a part of. Broadening our understanding of political participation to include those practical activities could be useful in assessing and devising plans for participatory reforms in small-scale local democracies, but also possibly at a larger scale that would produce the benefits of participation without requiring individuals to overly engage in demanding and complex procedures. (shrink)

This dissertation offers a robust philosophical examination of a phenomenon that is morally, socially, and politically significant – microaggressions. Microaggressions are understood to be brief and routine verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities that, whether intentional or unintentional, convey hostility toward or bias against members of marginalized groups. Microaggressions are rooted in stereotypes and/or bias (whether implicit or explicit) and are connected to broader systems of oppression. Microaggressions are philosophically interesting, since they involve significant ambiguity, questions about speech and communication, and (...) the ability for our speech to encode and transmit bits of meaning. Microaggressions prompt reflection about the nature of blameworthiness and responsibility, especially for unintended acts and harms. They involve questions about how we perceive and treat one another, and whether or not people are treated as true equals in our social and political worlds. For all of these reasons, microaggressions are a critical area in need of philosophical reflection, specifically reflection in feminist philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy, and social and political philosophy. This dissertation seeks to advance the philosophy of microaggressions through three distinct aims: a conceptual aim (chapters 2 and 3), an epistemological aim (chapters 1 and 2), and a moral aim (chapters 4 and 5). The conceptual aim involves clarifying how we should understand and categorize microaggressions. The epistemological aim involves identifying some of the epistemological assumptions undergirding discussions of microaggressions in the literature, including assumptions made by critics of microaggression theory, and arguing for an alternative epistemological framework for theorizing about microaggressions. The moral aim involves better understanding the harms of microaggressions, including their role in reinforcing structures of oppression and unjust social hierarchy. Taken together, these chapters make some progress on the conceptual, epistemological, and moral questions that microaggressions generate, and which philosophers have not yet adequately analyzed. It thus offers a meaningful contribution to the conversations philosophers are beginning to have about the morally and politically salient phenomenon of microaggressions. (shrink)

As a contribution to development ethics, this article attempts to clarify what 'empowerment' should mean, in so far as it is a valuable goal. I begin with the core ethical idea of empowerment that is to be found in recent work on measuring empowerment, led by Deepa Narayan, namely: empowerment occurs when people are better able to shape their own lives. Since this is a metaphor, I attempt to articulate a corresponding literal meaning. What I find is that people are (...) empowered to the extent that: (a) they exercise enhanced decision-making and influence over strategic life-choices and barriers to agency and well-being freedom; (b) their capacity for such decision-making and influence has also been enhanced; and (c) they are capable of making these gains prevail, given (i) the capabilities they have and assets they control, individually or collectively, and (ii) the opportunity structure in which they act. (shrink)

Food systems are made of a myriad of actors, visions and interests. Collaborative governance arrangement may foster their transformation towards greater sustainability when conventional means, such as state-oriented planning, technological developments or social innovations provide insufficient impetus. However, such arrangements may achieve transformative results only under certain conditions and in specific contexts. Despite an abundant literature on participatory schemes, the success for collaborative governance arrangements remains partially understood and deserves academic attention, in particular in the field of food systems reform. (...) This article provides an in-depth analysis of an empirical case study in the Walloon Region (Belgium), where the administration for sustainable development initiated a six-month participatory process to collectively construct a roadmap towards a sustainable regional food system. The article explores the extent to which the process has allowed transformative voices to emerge, and assesses whether the outcome provides a promising tool for adopting a transformative policy at the regional scale. It argues that the facilitation process insufficiently attenuated existing power relations and highlights key underlying factors (including time, resources, expertise and coalition building) that, like in classical negotiation settings, strengthen or weaken specific actors. It discusses the link between the results of the participatory process and the potential for policy-makers to build upon these to guide further the region’s food system towards a sustainable future. (shrink)

Este artigo investiga quais são os principais conceitos de poder propostos pela teoria feminista da segunda onda, de modo a sustentar que nessa são identificáveis dois conceitos fundamentais que são opostos mas complementários. Para tanto, propõe-se um percurso pelas principais ideias do feminismo acerca do poder surgidas a partir da década de 1960, nas quais esse aparece relacionado, principalmente, aos conceitos de dominação e opressão, mas também às visões sobre empoderamento, recurso, cuidado e liberdade. Com base no mapeamento teórico realizado, (...) argumenta-se que para a análise das relações de poder estabelecidas entre homens e mulheres é necessário retomar tanto o conceito de poder como dominação quanto como empoderamento. (shrink)