Contesting Power

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A community development group I belong to has been lately discussing power dynamics. It got me thinking about a country director I once knew. She did not arrive at her new posting full of ‘can do’ ideas and attitudes about how to (quickly) ‘fix’ things within that ailing organization.

 

She took her time to listen and absorb (and drink barrels of tea), in order to build up relationships with people based on their humanity, not their role in the organization. In doing so, she discovered far more about the internal workings of the team and how to better approach ‘fixing’ things by (re)building trust and dialogue first, as opposed to monologue when you are ‘problem-solving’.

 

Then this made me think of those I’ve worked with who arrive, confident in the fact that naturally they were hired or taken on as volunteers because they were changemakers—doers, dammit—who had all the answers and approaches to negotiating power relations and intergroup dynamics because, hey, folks is folks, right?

 

The Balance of Power

 

So that got me thinking about power structures in Vietnam, and the interplay between Communism and Confucianism. There is a shared belief in benevolent leaders, but a departure (in theory) on the role of women and hierarchies. Naturally that practice on the ground is entirely different.

 

Still later, someone in the group mentioned The Barefoot Guide to Working with Organisations and Social Change (ignore the cheesy cartoons). They describe power as 'power over' (win-lose scenarios), 'power with' (shared common ground), 'power to' (recognizing unique potential) and 'power within' (agency). It’s a useful framework for contextualizing the intersection between power, politics and empowerment.

 

There are also hidden power structures, such as domestic violence in the home of a high-ranking woman. Hidden power can mean creating guilt or fear to influence circumstances to your benefit. Elsewhere, no organizational training manual articulates the myriad unspoken rules: the blind eye turned to a supervisor-subordinate office affair, refrigerator-shelf wars for lunch bags, unassigned parking spots (all true stories from where I’ve worked). I once inadvertently broke an unspoken rule (and therefore a hidden power structure) when, upon returning from a field visit, I had not come back bearing small gifts for the entire staff from where I’d been.

 

Power imbalances exist between say, a researcher and her in-country project team, translators and the community translated. Who needs developing? Does someone personally think they’re lacking access to social justice? If you refuse to partake in a development project does this make you ‘ungrateful’ or ‘selfish’ for not ‘bettering’ your life?

 

Development has always been about politics: relationships and power. This means the whole shebang is contestable. But that’s not a bad thing. Contestability invites that necessary dialogue and non-directive approaches. Are we frustrated because there has been no uptake on the ah-may-zing project we’re implementing or because we’re not addressing the thing that actually needs doing?

 

Case in point: should we donate clothes or support local textile industries post disaster? Solutions lie in more robust and empowered civil societies (dialogue), not more aid (monologue). Which brings us back to the point: power is held—and transformed —in relationships.

 

Perhaps another way of looking at power is that if development doesn’t lead to a change in the essence and caliber of relationships among our communities, then it’s a sure bet that no real development has actually occurred.

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Photo: Avel Chuklanov / unsplash.com

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This article originally appeared in Word Vietnam magazine and has been adapted. To view the magazine’s online version click here.