Crystalline Empowerment: Negotiating Tensions in Refugee Resettlement

Abstract

As the number of forcibly displaced people continues to rise worldwide, humanitarian organizations are playing a growing role in finding solutions. This study investigates one of the world’s largest refugee resettlement organizations as it pilots innovative empowerment programs. With very little research regarding organizational rhetoric, discourse, and practices within resettlement agencies, there is great need for understanding the tensions that arise amid empowerment processes. This participant ethnography identifies distinct formations of empowerment and disempowerment. The analysis identifies tensions between (1) active/passive and (2) material/symbolic interpretations of empowerment, as well as (3) the enabling/constraining effects of communication technologies. The metaphor, crystalline empowerment, is introduced to connect a tension-centered approach with a view of empowerment that prioritizes organic, contingent interpretations while identifying practical opportunities for inclusion and agency in resettlement contexts.