Empowerment to participate: a case study of participation by indian sex workers in HIV prevention Export

@article{citeulike:1806298, abstract = {The popularity of ?participation? and ?empowerment? in international development discourse is not matched by sophisticated conceptualisation of these terms. Critics have argued that their vagueness allows ?participation? and ?empowerment? to be used indiscriminately to describe interventions which vary from tokenism to genuine devolving of power to the community. This paper suggests that conceptualising empowerment and participation simply in terms of a scale of ?more or less? participation or ?more or less? empowerment does not capture the qualitatively different forms of empowerment that are necessary for different activities. Instead, the paper conceptualises participation in terms of concrete domains of action in which people may be empowered to take part. An ethnographic case study of a participatory HIV prevention project run by sex workers in Kolkata illustrates the argument. Four domains of activity in which sex workers may participate are distinguished: (1) participating in accessing project services; (2) participating in providing project services; (3) participating in shaping project workers' activity; (4) participating in defining project goals. To be empowered to participate in each domain depends upon a different set of resources. Asking the question ?empowerment to do what?? of health promotion projects is proposed as a way of facilitating appropriate project design. Copyright {\copyright} 2006 John Wiley \& Sons, Ltd.}, address = {School of Nursing, Midwifery and Community Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK}, author = {Cornish, Flora}, citeulike-article-id = {1806298}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/casp.866}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112680210/ABSTRACT}, doi = {10.1002/casp.866}, journal = {Journal of Community \& Applied Social Psychology}, keywords = {community, empowerment, participation}, number = {4}, pages = {301--315}, posted-at = {2007-10-22 13:43:04}, priority = {3}, title = {Empowerment to participate: a case study of participation by indian sex workers in HIV prevention}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/casp.866}, volume = {16}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1806298 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1806298 N2 - The popularity of ?participation? and ?empowerment? in international development discourse is not matched by sophisticated conceptualisation of these terms. Critics have argued that their vagueness allows ?participation? and ?empowerment? to be used indiscriminately to describe interventions which vary from tokenism to genuine devolving of power to the community. This paper suggests that conceptualising empowerment and participation simply in terms of a scale of ?more or less? participation or ?more or less? empowerment does not capture the qualitatively different forms of empowerment that are necessary for different activities. Instead, the paper conceptualises participation in terms of concrete domains of action in which people may be empowered to take part. An ethnographic case study of a participatory HIV prevention project run by sex workers in Kolkata illustrates the argument. Four domains of activity in which sex workers may participate are distinguished: (1) participating in accessing project services; (2) participating in providing project services; (3) participating in shaping project workers' activity; (4) participating in defining project goals. To be empowered to participate in each domain depends upon a different set of resources. Asking the question ?empowerment to do what?? of health promotion projects is proposed as a way of facilitating appropriate project design. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. IS - 4 JF - Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology AD - School of Nursing, Midwifery and Community Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK EP - 315 TI - Empowerment to participate: a case study of participation by indian sex workers in HIV prevention VL - 16 SP - 301 KW - community KW - empowerment KW - participation AU - Cornish, Flora PY - 2006/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/casp.866 ER -