What concepts are best suitable to describe the individual and collective experience of power? Leveraging primary empirical data collected over a decade, the study dwells on the idea of empowerment and puts it in perspective with competing vernacular terms such as tāqat or shakti [‘power’ in Urdu and Hindi]. The study relies on a case study of one woman, a resident of an informal settlement in Patna, India, who experienced a stellar political rise and an equally spectacular fall. The analysis illuminates the multidimensional character of power—one may enjoy a strong exercise of power at one scale and relative powerlessness at another. The ensuing reflection reveals that the concept of empowerment fails to capture the multi-sidedness of power. In contrast, alternative vernacular terms provide an avenue to grasp the contextuality of power. Yet they feature a limitation common with the idea of empowerment(s)—they are conceptually fluid and therefore subject to normative reinterpretations.
AgarwalB. (1997). Bargaining and gender relations: Within and beyond the household. Feminist Economics, 3(1), 1–51.
2.
AuerbachA. M. (2019). Demanding development: The politics of public goods provision in India’s urban slums. Cambridge University Press.
3.
BacquéM.-H., & BiewenerC. (2015). L’empowerment, une pratique emancipatrice? (Empowerment, an emancipatory practice?). La Découverte.
4.
BakerM. J. (1987). Women and power. Women & Therapy, 6(1–2), 1–10.
5.
BanerjeeN. K. (2010). Grassroot empowerment (1975-1990): A discussion paper [Working Paper]. eSocialSciences.
6.
BatliwalaS. (2007). Taking the power out of empowerment—An experiential account. Development in Practice, 17(4–5), 557–565.
7.
BourdieuP. (1979). La Distinction: Critique sociale du jugement(Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste). Minuit.
8.
BourdieuP. (1984). Espace social et genèse des ‘classes’. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 52(1), 3–14.
9.
BurraN., Deshmukh-RanadiveJ., & MurthyR. (2005). Micro-credit, poverty and empowerment: Linking the triad. Sage Publications.
10.
ButlerJ. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
11.
CalvèsA.-E. (2009). Empowerment: The history of a key concept in contemporary development discourse. Revue Tiers Monde, 200(4), 735–749.
12.
ChackoP. (2020). Gender and authoritarian populism: Empowerment, protection, and the politics of resentful aspiration in India. Critical Asian Studies, 52(2), 204–225.
13.
ChakravartiU., & KrishnarajM. (2018). Gendering caste: Through a feminist lens. Sage Publications.
14.
ChantS. (2016). Women, girls and world poverty: Empowerment, equality or essentialism?. International Development Planning Review, 38(1), 1–25.
15.
CharmesJ., & WieringaS. (2003). Measuring women’s empowerment: An assessment of the gender-related development index and the gender empowerment measure’. Journal of Human Development, 4(3), 419–435.
16.
ChaudhryV. (2019). Neoliberal crises of social work in the global South: Ethnography of individualising disability and empowerment practice in India. International Social Work, 62(3), 1117–1130.
17.
ConnellR. (2014). The sociology of gender in southern perspective. Current Sociology, 62(4), 550–567.
18.
CornwallA., & BrockK. (2005). Beyond buzzwords: ‘poverty reduction’, ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’ in development policy’. UNRISD, 10, 34.
19.
DahlR. A. (1957). The concept of power. Behavioral Science, 2(3), 201–215.
20.
DeW., J., & BernerE. (2009). Progressive patronage? Municipalities, NGOs, CBOs and the limits to slum dwellers’ empowerment. Development and Change, 40(5), 927–947.
21.
DevikaJ. (2021, August). Time to dump ‘empowerment’? Feminism, women and the state in Kerala today’. Kafila.
22.
DyerW. G., & WilkinsA. L. (1991). Better stories, not better constructs, to generate better theory: A rejoinder to Eisenhardt. The Academy of Management Review, 16(3), 613–619.
23.
FernandesL. (2021). The contact zones of intersectionality: In equality and feminist knowledge production on India. In FernandesL. (Ed.), Routledge handbook of gender in South Asia. Routledge.
24.
FreireP. (1968). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.
25.
GarciaM. (2018). On ne naît pas soumise, on le devient (One is not born submitted, one becomes so). Flammarion.
26.
GeertzC. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. Basic Books.
27.
GerringJ. (2017). Case study research: Principle and practice. Cambridge University Press.
28.
GrownC., & SenG. (1987). Development crises and alternative visions: Third world women’s perspectives. New Feminist Library.
29.
GuptaK., & YesudianP. P. (2006). Evidence of women’s empowerment in India: A study of socio-spatial disparities. Geo Journal, 65(4), 365–380.
30.
HowittR. (1998). Scale as relation: Musical metaphors of geographical dcale’. Area, 30(1), 49–58.
31.
KabeerN. (1999). Resources, agency, achievements: Reflections on the measurement of women’s empowerment’. Development and Change, 30(3), 435–464.
32.
KabeerN. (2002). The power to choose: Bangladeshi women and labor market decisions in London and Dhaka. Verso.
33.
KingG., KeohaneR., & VerbaS. (2021). Designing social inquiry: Scientific inference in qualitative research. Princeton University Press.
34.
LevyJ. S. (2008). Case studies: Types, designs, and logics of inference. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 25(1), 1–18.
35.
LukesS. (1986). Power: A radical view. NYU Press.
36.
MadhokS., & RaiS. M. (2012). Agency, injury, and transgressive politics in neoliberal times. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 37(3), 645–669.
37.
MahmoodS. (2005). Politics of piety. The islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton University Press.
38.
MansuriG., & RaoV. (2004). Community-based and -driven development: A critical review. World Bank Research Group, 19(1).
39.
MasseyD. B. (1993). Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place (pp. 75–89). Routledge.
40.
MiraftabF. (2004). Making neo-liberal governance: The disempowering work of empowerment’. International Planning Studies, 9(4), 239–259.
41.
MohantyC. T. (1988). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review, 12(3), 333–358.
42.
MohantyM. (1995). On the concept of ‘empowerment’. Economic & Political Weekly, 30(24), 1434–1436.
43.
MolyneuxM. (1984). Mobilization without emancipation? Women’s interests, state and revolution in Nicaragua’. Critical Social Policy, 4(10), 59–71.
44.
MooreH. L. (1994). A passion for difference: Essays in anthropology and gender. Indiana University Press.
45.
MukhopadhyayM. (2004). Mainstreaming gender or ‘streaming’ gender away: Feminists marooned in the development business’. IDS Bulletin, 35(4), 95–103.
46.
NaikM. (2022). Testing the waters: Young women’s work and mobile aspirations in India’s small cities’. Social Change, 52(2), 257–275.
47.
NarayanU. (1998). Essence of culture and a sense of history: A feminist critique of cultural essentialism’. Hypatia, 13(2), 86–106.
48.
NarayanaswamyL. (2016). Whose feminism vounts? Gender(ed) knowledge and professionalisation in development. Third World Quarterly, 37(12), 2156–2175.
49.
NicholsC. E. (2022). The politics of mobility and empowerment: The case of self-help groups in India’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 47(2), 470–483.
PitkinH. F. (1993). Wittgenstein and justice: On the significance of Ludwig Wittgenstein for social and political thought. University of California Press.
52.
RowlandsJ. (1997). Questioning empowerment: Working with women in Honduras. Oxfam.
53.
SardenbergC. M. B. (2010). Women’s empowerment in Brazil: Tensions in discourse and practice’. Development, 53(2), 232–238.
54.
ScottJ. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. Yale University Press.
55.
SharmaA. (2008). Logics of empowerment: Development, gender, and governance in neoliberal India. University of Minnesota Press.
56.
SinghS. (2007). Deconstructing ‘gender and development’ for ‘identities of women’. International Journal of Social Welfare, 16(2), 100–109.
57.
SolomonB. B. (1976). Black empowerment: Social work in oppressed communities. Columbia University Press.
58.
SpainD. (2014). Gender and urban space. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 18.
59.
SpivakG. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In NelsonC. & GrossbergL. (Eds), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 24–28). Macmillan.
60.
SpivakG. C. (2000). The new subaltern: A silent interview. In ChaturvediV. (Ed.), Mapping subaltern studies and the postcolonial. Verso.
61.
StakeR. E. (2005). Qualitative case studies. In DenzinN. K. & LincolnY. S. (Eds), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed. pp. 443–466). Sage Publications.
62.
SubramaniamM. (2006). The power of women’s organising: Gender, caste, and class in India. Lexington Books.
63.
TanejaM. (2019). From slutwalks to Nirbhaya: Shifts in the Indian women’s movement. Women’s Studies International Forum, 74, 179–187.
64.
The Indian Express. (2019, January27). Nari Shakti Chosen as Hindi Word of 2018. https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/nari-shakti-chosen-as-hindi-word-of-2018-5556748/
65.
WeberM. (2019). Economy and society: A new translation. Harvard University Press.
