Trade-offs in empowerment through social action: voices from Detroit

Abstract

Existing literature offers many examples of how social action organizations build empowerment in marginalized communities. The primary argument for this article is that multiple mechanisms of empowerment exist and should be understood as much in terms of their trade-offs as for what they achieve for activists, organizations, and communities. Rather than thinking of a single organization as empowering or disempowering, we argue that any activist organization can be analyzed for its combination of empowering mechanisms and corresponding trade-offs. In a case study of a faith-based, social action organization in Detroit, we find support for the connection between empowerment building and the mechanisms identified in existing research. We also present trade-offs among these mechanisms of empowerment, in part caused by the divisive regional context, and conclude with the argument that a better understanding of the multifaceted quality of empowerment could help organizers work in coalition to leverage their strengths toward shared goals.

Keywords:

• community organizing
• empowerment
• faith-based
• social action
• coalitions

Acknowledgements

The research presented here was made possible by the Wayne State University Graduate School, the Wayne State University School of Social Work, the University of Michigan Ford Fellowship in Political Science and Public Policy, the Kettering Foundation of Dayton, Ohio, and the Nonprofit and Public Management Center at the University of Michigan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Kettering Foundation of Dayton, Ohio; University of Michigan Ford Fellowship in Political Science and Public Policy; Wayne State University Nonprofit and Public Management Center, Graduate School, and School of Social Work.