Chapter II Power and Empowerment: Review of the Literature
2.7 Developing a conceptual and analytical framework
To complete the conceptual and analytical framework for this study, I have drawn from both empowerment theorisation (section 2.5) and institutional analysis (section 2.6). The main reason for this is to ensure that the broader institutional contexts of actions and interactions of community groups and the norms, laws and structures regulating these actions and interactions are accounted for. The framework assists me, as a researcher, to recognise institutional arrangements that create opportunities for the empowerment of the community groups and contribute to wider social change.
The purpose of this conceptual and analytical framework is to guide the conduct and analysis of research. The framework is specifically developed for studying bottom-up community empowerment in African communities, but it can also be applied to other similar studies. The framework has three key components namely contexts, action arena and
K. Hiruy | Institute for Regional Development | Power and Empowerment: Review of the Literature 62 interaction and change. The framework relates to the research questions and provides a schematic representation of the contexts of action, the action arena, and patterns of interaction and change. The framework can be presented schematically as below.
Figure II-3: Conceptual and analytical framework for community empowerment
Source: I have used Ostrom (2009) and Di Gregorio et al. (2008) to develop the framework.
This framework provides a structure to identify the action situation, (which, in this case, is the disempowerment of African communities), identify actors who participate to change the action situation, observe and analyse the patterns of the actors’ actions and interactions and make deductions about the likely outcomes. These outcomes are then thought through or subjected to the core conceptualisations of community empowerment, which are described in section 2.5 to understand the relationship between the contexts, action arena, and the interactions and change.
I will now summarise the key components of the framework and how the dynamics of the framework enables exploring the process of community empowerment.
2.7.1 Contexts
Contexts refer to pre-existing social situations and norms that influence the behaviour of the community groups and other actors. These include migration and settlement history,
Contexts
Action arena
Interaction and Change
Migration history Disadvantage Community attributes Norms, policy, legal structure, power relationsActors Action situation
Mechanisms Conditions Resources Structures
Patterns of interaction Empowerment outcomes
S tag es , C o mpon en ts a nd D omains of co mm un it y empo w er m en t (se ct ion 2 .5)
K. Hiruy | Institute for Regional Development | Power and Empowerment: Review of the Literature 63 disadvantage, culture and attributes of the community groups under study, and norms, policies, legal structures and power relations that influence their behaviour.
The framework provides a structure to identify and examine the contexts of disempowerment, what and how contexts affect agency and structure, and the empowerment of communities. The identification of established norms, migration and settlement history, disadvantage and other contextual backgrounds should be analysed in relation to stages, components and operational domains of empowerment. The contexts of disadvantage affect the action arena and in turn are affected by the action arena. At this stage, it is also necessary to analyse how contexts affect the behaviour of actors involved, the action resources actors bring to the action situation, the mechanisms used in the empowerment of the communities and the patterns of action that emanate from these interactions.
An action situation is determined by the nature of participants in the action, the level of awareness of the situation by the community groups, the level of influence these community groups have in changing their situation and the likely outcome of collective action that these community groups may initiate. In analysing the actors and action situation, it is possible to look for factors that affect the action arena. Ostrom (2009) suggests that these factors be rules used by the community group to order its relationship, the nature of the situation that is acted upon (disadvantage), and the nature of the broader community (society) within which any particular arena is placed.
2.7.2 Action arena
The term action arena in this framework refers to the social space where community groups interact with each other and other actors to understand and resolve issues. According to Ostrom (2009), an action arena includes an action situation and actors in that situation. In this framework, I have assumed that the action situation is given; hence it is not shown in the schema. I commenced the study with the assumption that the African communities in Australia are disadvantaged and that their disempowerment is an action situation that needs to change (see discussions of the African communities in Chapter III and IV). Thus, the action arena in this framework is used to analyse and predict the behaviour of the actors who participated to change this situation and the ensuing institutional arrangements.
In analysing the action arena, all actors involved in the community empowerment process need to be identified. Actors can be individuals or organisational agents that participate in the action arena. Once actors are identified, it is necessary to look into the behaviour of
K. Hiruy | Institute for Regional Development | Power and Empowerment: Review of the Literature 64 each actor by identifying the action resources actors bring into the action situation, institutional formats through which these actors interact, the factors that influence how actors select certain actions to effect change and the occurrence of interactions, and the rules-in-use. It is also important to analyse the patterns of interactions and the outcomes of these interactions.
To analyse the structure of the action arena, the contextual factors that affect the action arena should be taken into account. For the purpose of this study, the contextual factors that affect the structure of the action arena include migration and resettlement history, disadvantage and challenges, community attributes, and norms, policies, legal structures and power relations that influence the behaviour of the community. This framework also obliges, the researcher to look into the conceptualisations of community empowerment to analyse the action situation and actors in that situation.
2.7.3 Interaction and change
The patterns of interactions are used to analyse emerging institutional arrangements and their outcomes. To analyse patterns of interactions systematically, naming the actors in the action situation is an important step. This occurs in the action arena, and once the actors are identified, patterns of interactions can be studied in binary by looking at the actions and interactions of two actors and the outcomes of these interactions in the empowerment of a community group. It is also important to deepen the analysis further to see whether the outcomes of these interactions have contributed to change in the circumstances of the community under study and the wider society.
Empowerment outcomes in this framework refer to indicators of community empowerment that can be expressed through change in the situation of the communities studied and the social system in which they exist. In analysing outcomes, the researcher may assess the outcomes that are being achieved as well as those that could be achieved under alternative institutional arrangements. In this regard, progressive stages, components and operational domains of empowerment can be applied as evaluative criteria to both the outcomes and the processes of achieving outcomes to see the alignment between theory and practice.
2.7.4 The utility of conceptualisations of community empowerment
The three core concepts of community—stages, components and operational domains— are used to analyse and identify the process and outcomes of community empowerment within the three case studies. The stages of community empowerment help analyse theK. Hiruy | Institute for Regional Development | Power and Empowerment: Review of the Literature 65 position of each community group in the empowerment process, components are used to evaluate whether a change is taking place or has taken place within the community groups, and the operational domains are used to identify actions and activities that link community action with community empowerment.
The overall purpose of these core conceptualisations is to serve as conceptual references to inform the analysis of contexts, action arena and interaction and change. The core conceptualisations provide ideal theoretical approaches that the researcher can use to reflect upon the analysis of the contexts, action arena and interactions and change to understand the complex dynamics between action and structure. The interplay among these is important in understanding community empowerment.