When you think of the word empowerment, what comes to most peoples mind is power or at least that is what comes to my mind. In the American Heritage College dictionary fourth edition, it is a noun of the word “empower”, they describe it as “1.to invest with power esp. legal power or official authority, and 2. To equip or supply with an ability; enable.” (Empower, 2010, 2002, p. 460)
In my research on the subject, I found that people use the word in different context in different fields of study or genres of practice but it all comes back to some person having a feeling of power therefore empowerment. In one study on ”the empowerment of youth as a strategy to reduce crime in Nigerian society” they say, “In recent years, almost all governments of countries of the world, including advanced countries have sought new approaches to harness the potential of young people and address the problems facing them. The concept of youth empowerment has gained increasing attention. Youth empowerment means involving young people in decision making processes on issues that affect them, as well as entrusting them with the knowledge and skills necessary for them to effectively and meaningfully participate.” (Olaleye, 2010, p. 104)
In another article from the Journal of marketing published by American Marketing Association entitled the psychological effects of empowerment strategies on consumers’ product demand, “since the internet is here companies now utilize that as a tool to involve customers in various stages of the development of new products.” This gives the customers a since of empowerment in that “they feel they have some control over which products get manufactured and marketed.” (Fuchs, Prandelli & Scheier, 2010, p. 65)
In the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, it says this, “Over the past decade, the term ‘empowerment’ has been generously employed and woefully ill-defined. As with many other buzzwords in development, actors offer vastly disparate, and often vague, definitions of ‘empowerment’.” (MacKenzie, 2009)
“They studied female soldiers in reintegration programs in Sierra Leone and contended that newer economic policies such as individual character, accountability and economic order have formed empowerment initiatives to a greater degree than thoughts of local input, relegated groups, or elucidation. Furthermore, in place of representing a change in development methods, projects marketing themselves as suppliers of women’s empowerment—including the restoration procedure in Sierra Leone—educate subordinates with specific messages about improvement and social order.” (MacKenzie, 2009)
“As I said people in different fields of study use the word in varying context. The Journal of Rehabilitation states, investigators have started to identify and express empowerment as complex and situational. Empowerment has been identified, both as a procedure and as a result. Since the word has various connotations in public interpretation and specialized philosophy, when an organization signifies a yearning to "empower" its clienteles, there is no communal perception of steps that may be taken to yield such a result.” (Frain, Tschopp & Bishop, 2009)
“Due to the deficiency of an accurate use of the term empowerment, researchers have recurrently worked toward defining and giving hypothetical meaning to the term. Rehabilitation investigators have been at the head of this crusade. Kosciulek used five items from a self-esteem scale that he felt signified empowerment as applied to an end user focused concept of empowerment. These five things have to do with control, competence, responsibility, participation and future orientation.” (Frain, Tschopp & Bishop, 2009)
To conclude empowerment is used in different contexts in different fields of study such as economics and psychology or psychiatry but to me it still boils down to the same meaning of transferring power to an individual or person. Somehow, it still comes down to someone feeling in control of a situation or in power hence ‘empowerment’.
References
Empower, the American heritage dictionary. (J. Pope, H. Schonthal, & V. Tamm, Eds.) (4th ed.). (2002).
Frain, M. P., Tschopp, M. K., & Bishop, M. (2009). Empowerment variables as predictors of outcomes in rehabilitation. Journal of Rehabilitation, 75(1), 27-35.
Fuchs, C., Prandelli, E., & Scheier, M. (2010, January). The psychological effects of empowerment strategies on consumers product demand. Journal of Marketing, 74(ISSN: 0022-2429 (print), 1547-7185 (electronic)), 65-79.
MacKenzie, M. (2009, June). Empowerment boom or bust? assessing women's post-conflict empowerment initiatives. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 22(2).
Olaleye, Y. L. (2010). Youth empowerment as a strategy for reducing crime in the society. European Journal of Social Sciences, 15(2), 104.