CUIDADOS AL FINAL DE LA VIDA

In the section above, I highlight the importance of internal transformation and personal healing within inclusive democratic participation. What do individuals need to heal from? In this final section, I put forth that various power structures have worked to silence, suppress, or marginalize individuals and communities. The critical piece of this conceptualization of inclusive democratic participation, therefore, is its analysis of power. As I will demonstrate later in this paper, the mismanagement of power (in its different forms) has suppressed and prevented individuals and communities from expressing their diverse perspectives, and delegitimized alternative modes of participation in order to control what counts as true engagement,

participation, and knowledge. This gives way to various forms of conflict, trauma, and need for healing. In her book, Power: A User’s Guide, Julie Diamond (2016) notes different variations of power as it is manifested in the world, but three variations are useful to our understanding of power in inclusive democratic participation.

First, at the most intimate level is personal power. Diamond uses the example of Nelson Mandela, who spent twenty-seven years in prison during the apartheid in South Africa. She writes:

Because he had been sentenced to prison indefinitely, he was stripped of all human rights. He wasn’t just on the lower rungs of authority; he wasn’t even on the ladder. And yet, he saw himself as a teacher and moral guide—to other prisoners, to guards, and to the government. He said he saw his trial as an opportunity to teach. (Diamond, 2016, p. 64)

Despite having no power, rights, or resources within society, Mandela nevertheless had personal power – a “combination of psychological abilities, life experiences, emotional intelligence, and spiritual strength” that exists within us regardless of any external factors

(Diamond, 2016, p. 64). Thus, regardless of our position in society, we each have varying levels of personal power.

Second, Diamond speaks to positional power, or the “authority of one’s position or role within an organization” (Diamond, 2016, p. 3). This is perhaps a more common understanding of power, indicating that a person’s position gives them the ability to make decisions that will influence or have impact on their surroundings or organization.

Third, Diamond speaks to a kind of contextual power (or lack of power) that I will call systemic power. She shares the story of her friend Chandra, who, as the Chief Marketing Officer of a Fortune 500 technology company, held a lot of positional power (Diamond, 2016, p. 54). However, there are times when Chandra doesn’t feel powerful, particularly in contexts where she has to speak in ways she is not accustomed to. For example, Diamond explains:

Chandra’s boss is a ‘numbers’ guy; he values data, numbers, and metrics. Chandra is more of a ‘big picture’ people person; she values ideas, communication, and relationships. But he’s the boss, so she has to use his ‘currency,’ a currency of which she has less. (Diamond, 2016, p. 55) While part of the power that is illustrated is positional – that is, Chandra’s boss has positional power because of his role and rank – the other part of it is systemic because Chandra has to adopt a way of explaining ideas that is not her regular way of communicating. Who needs to change their style is dependent on context, and Diamond explains that “each context has a different set of values, determined by the constellation of people, customs, issues, and

as noted previously, communities experiencing marginalization have long been forced to change their practices in order to fit into traditional forms of knowledge production (Brown & Strega, 2005). People who have the privilege of working within a system that is aligned with their values and modes of communication, therefore, have systemic power.

Through all its different variations, power is not necessarily negative – as Diamond describes it, it is a force absent of any intrinsic values. However, in an analysis of how roles influence us, Diamond brings together studies that illustrate how the power from high-ranking roles given to ordinary people in the context of a study can actually serve to disinhibit individuals in decision-making – that is, when study participants were given positional power, they were more likely to take up space and time in their interactions, disregard other opinions, and act in self-serving ways (Diamond, 2016). This means that power has the ability to corrupt anyone – the abuse of power is not an intrinsic quality of the individual, but rather a mismanagement of power within a role when we have limited understanding of power’s influence on us. When mismanaged, power has the ability to change leaders and subsequently, to suppress diverse perspectives. This is why an analysis and understanding of power are critical to public sector engagement and community-based work. Diamond writes that power can be positive:

It allows us [to] find the learning in setbacks, hope after defeat, and balance after life delivers a challenging blow. We use power every day to make choices, from the mundane – “eggs or oatmeal?” – to the life-altering decisions concerning jobs, partners, and long-term objectives. Indeed we use power to motivate ourselves, set goals, and push ourselves towards those goals. Power, when used well, can be an act of self-love, and owning your authority and influence is the necessary precondition to self-development. (Diamond, 2016, p. 15)

Ultimately, this literature review – with its analysis of power within participatory processes, democracy, and unconscious factors influencing individuals within group processes – is able to move forward through this conceptualization of power in practice. The purpose of this paper is to develop an awareness of how power operates in democratic participation in different

variations, so that we may begin to use power as an act of self-love and self-development, as Diamond describes above.