Empowerment and Communication: Lessons Learned From Organizing for Social Change

Empowerment is the process through which individuals perceive that they control situations. Such perceived agency is a fundamental behavior change, which often leads to many other behavior changes. The present chapter synthesizes research on empowerment and communication in the developing nations of Latin American, Africa, and Asia. Several investigations into the empowerment of underdogs in society are examined, including (a) women dairy farmers in India, (b) women members of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, (c) community-based radio listening groups in the villages of Lutsaan and Abirpur in India, and (d) people living with AIDS in Thailand. Essentially, the process of empowerment occurs in small groups at the local level when individuals organize for social change in order to accomplish goals that they cannot achieve as separate individuals. By exploring the relationship between individual and collective empowerment, we seek to draw a series of lessons learned about the empowerment process and apply them more generally to any type of system in any nation.