'Power Relations' and Poverty Reduction
Author: Bill Walker, January 15, 2023 - I agree that trying to fit everything under 'communication' is simplistic, and that 'power relations' matter.
The short answer to your question [Ed.: comment by Javed Ahmad] is that 'communication' seems simple, cheap and effective. But it rarely is (unless it is the only thing missing, which is rare.) Because what causes poverty is complex, messy & context-specific. To last, responses must match.
'Power relations' tend to be a black box which has to be opened up: too often, not centrally and satisfactorily addressed (e.g., not addressing the power of justice and efficacy in space and time).
Doing this would require a much longer, article or book-length response. So my response pulls the box ajar, for a very quick peek.
One helpful way to begin is to see power as a multidimensional box (a discourse that is over a century old and now sees the box as having four dimensions, which are mostly invisible). Just as the physical dimensions of a visible box or any object - length breadth and height - entail each other (and other dimensions like time), so dimensions of invisible hidden or invisible power entail each other (so, e.g., they can't be adequately understood without reference to each other, as for instance a box or chair can't be understood simply by knowing its breadth.) One takeaway here is that trying to understand how to influence power causing poverty by using communication alone is like trying to use the box's width to open or change the box: you can expect to fail.
In other words, effecting change is not merely about communication (or for that matter how community and institutions are organised or even how people 'know' in ways that become more democratic and fair (so marginalised groups set the agendas), or use rules that are inclusive - though they all matter). What matters also are the conditions under which the unfree become free to express what they know tacitly through their own lived experiences and use that to advocate for and change unfair power relations and change policies in ways that matter to them. Which means it needs inclusive communication collaboration of the kind that builds trusting reciprocity and mutual accountability for individual and collective flourishing: far easier said than done (yet doable).
Personally I find it more useful to explore how 'voice in decision-making' arises such that it can routinely entail accountable relationships and outcomes' (by introducing dimensions of power and freedom, as in the last para). For a synthesis of evidence on this, for DFID, in relation to primary schools globally, which highlights contextual factors, drivers and outcome pathways see:
For a summary answer connecting voice in decision-making with such outcomes see the abstract on page 3 of my PhD
"Power to the People?: Learning from the Case of Citizen Voice and Action"
While both of these studies 'open up this black box', I suggest that a further useful question is:
Under what conditions do 'power relations' become positive-sum (e.g., more fair, inclusive, democratic and collaborative) and promote the kinds of decisionmaking and ensuing action which promote accountability for individual and collective flourishing? And what makes communication 'positive sum' (e.g., so that it motivates - and keeps motivating - effective action for flourishing, remembering that words are just one part of communication and very contingent)?
As I've already suggested in my posts below and in my blogs, 'culture' - and more specifically cultural contextual factors' are critical for grasping and analysing the first three words of this question. I think allied questions to unpack these 3 words is:
Which historical contextual factors produced negative or zero-sum power? (e.g., exploitation/oppression (of land or people) and/or exclusion and or elite capture, or more often some unique combination of them; and how is this being maintained (e.g., through despair; hopelessness, powerlessness, mis/disinformation, manipulation, or distrust or more commonly, a combination of them)?
Which contextual factors facilitate fair, inclusive, democratic and collaborative learning, decisionmaking, goalsetting and action?
I think outsiders are largely ill-equipped to answer these questions.
I know marginalised communities & groups can answer them. They can learn to do dialogical action research, make sense of and transform ecological, political and social institutional systems which are failing them, but which they have reason to value and transform (e.g., primary and secondary education systems where many don't learn; healthcare systems which fail to promote healing; child protection systems which fail to protect children from harm; ecological institutions like forest/land/soil/water/air systems which are desertified or degraded and so do not support livelihoods).
I know this because I have examples of thousands of communities who have done and are doing this transformative work. In multiple transformative ways, with diverse kinds of outcomes, including individual and shared flourishing.
Image credit: Erik Törner, IM Individuell Människohjälp via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) - image selected by The CI Editor.
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