Contexto Jurídico

There are abundant works on empowerment within many academic disciplines from politics (e.g. Banducci et al., 2004; Bobo and Gilliam, 1990; Peterson et al., 2002; Tangri and Southall, 2008) to psychology (e.g. Gibbs and Fuery, 1994; Rubenstein and Lawler, 1990), to management (e.g. Greasley et al., 2008; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990) and other social sciences. This widespread use of the concept across many social sciences highlights that empowerment can be used and understood differently across disciplines. Early scholarly works on empowerment in social sciences suggest that the concept is relatively new.

Nonetheless the diversity of empowerment-related topics which are researched within social sciences makes it difficult to offer a universal definition of empowerment. This section looks into empowerment within the relationship between empowerment and power.

The relationship between empowerment and power has been the focus of many works across social sciences (Batliwala, 2007; Boje and Rosile, 2001; Cunningham et al., 1996;

Tew, 2006). Power is the root word in English for empowerment (Lincoln et al., 2002): “to empower means to give power to” (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990, p. 667). The verb empower has two meanings according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “to bestow power upon, make powerful” and “to gain or assume power over” (Lincoln et al., 2002, p.272).

Empowerment in this sense as defined by the Oxford English dictionary is consistent with some works in the literature of social sciences. For example, Cunningham et al. (1996) view empowerment as an act of empowering people through the redistribution of decision-making power. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish power from empowerment as the latter has been excessively equated to power. Though power is an essential element of any

54 explanation of empowerment (Denegri-Knott et al., 2006; Starkey, 2003), Lincoln et al.

(2002) remind us that empowerment does not equate with power but it is only an act that uses the latter to achieve a required outcome. On this basis, it is useful to understand empowerment through its relationship with power.

Foucault (1978), a key theorist on power, helps researchers to understand the manifold views of power in society. He associates power with the nature of relationships between people and institutions. Therefore, he rejects the notion of power as a commodity which is obtained by individuals or groups of people. Rather, Foucault (1978) mainly highlights the negative influence of power and associates it with people’s dominance of each other in society. Nonetheless especially in his later works also highlights the positive influence of power. For example, Foucault (1977, p.194) in his work entitled ‘Discipline and Punish’

recognises power as a productive force in society:

“We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it

‘excludes’, it ‘represses’, it ‘censors’, it ‘abstracts’, it ‘masks’, it ‘conceals’. In fact, power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth”.

Foucault (1977) sarcastically criticises the use of power but he reminds us not to limit power to its negative influence in society. It appears that people tend to associate power as a negative influence perhaps in consistency with our observation of political power in our society. Rather, Foucault (1977) asserts that power has a positive side which is deeply rooted in our production of knowledge and reality. Similar to Foucault (1978), Hollander and Offermann (1990, p.179) distinguish three types of power relations: “power over” (power as dominance over other people), “power to” (power as sharing with other people) and “power

55 from” (power as resistance of others). So, Hollander and Offermann (1990) also help us to note power through its positive and negative influences within our social relationships.

Tew (2006, p.41) also acknowledges power as a social relation and offers a matrix to understand power as both damaging and productive in people’s social relationships. He describes two forms of the negative influence of power (oppressive and collusive power) and two forms of the positive influence of power (protective and co-operative power). Tew (2006) associates oppressive and collusive forms of power with the exploitation and exclusion of other people in our relationships respectively, while he associates protective and co-operative power with the protection of vulnerable people and making collective action in the community.

So far the above discussion shows that power has been associated with manifold negative and positive influences within people’s social relationships in society. Yet, some researchers also appear to associate empowerment with negative consequences on the part of consumers. It appears that there are some common association between the negative influence of power as a form of political control. It is common that many people, researchers, might think of empowerment as damaging. However, many researchers have associated empowerment with a positive rather than a negative influence of power. Empowerment in social sciences is commonly understood as a productive rather than a damaging view of power as a development of negotiation skills (Hainard and Verschuur, 2001), an expansion in making strategic choices (Santillan et al., 2004), an achievement (Bobo and Gilliam, 1990), an increase of motivation (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990), a gaining of self-mastery (Rappaport, 1987), an improvement of life (Zimmerman, 1995) and a sharing ability (Cattaneo and Chapman, 2010). This means that empowerment mostly refers to how people expand their skills or abilities across their different life projects. On this basis, empowerment

56 reflects the positive and productive rather than the negative and dominating influence of power among people in society. To put it in the words stated by Tew (2006, p.49),

“empowerment offers a more positive vision of the productive possibilities of power”.

In line with Tew (2006), Haugaard (2012) draws on Foucault (1978) and Lukes (2005) in their conceptualisation of the contrasting views of power and argues that empowerment is more consistent with a positive view of power. Lukes (2005) advances our understanding of the productive perspective of power. He suggests that people have multiple interests which may not be necessarily contradictory to each other. The author shows that people can use power as a productive influence through the mutual satisfaction of their interests rather than seeking dominance over each other’s.

Overall, the above discussion emphasises the conceptual link between empowerment and power. But it also illustrates that empowerment in social sciences can reflect a positive rather than just a negative view of power. This offers better insights into conceptualisations of empowerment in marketing. Empowerment, rather than disempowerment, is more consistent with a positive influence of power among consumers themselves or between consumers and producers in the marketplace. This thesis mainly focuses on empowerment from the consumer rather than the producer perspective. Therefore, the next section will explore diverse discourses of consumer empowerment in marketing and examines the extent to which these discourses have been associated with a positive or a negative view of consumer power.