Tāqat, Shakti or Empowerment(s)? Describing the Experience of Power: A Decade of Observations in one Informal Settlement of Patna, India

Abstract

What concepts are best suitable to describe the individual and collective experience of power? Leveraging primary empirical data collected over a decade, the study dwells on the idea of empowerment and puts it in perspective with competing vernacular terms such as tāqat or shakti [‘power’ in Urdu and Hindi]. The study relies on a case study of one woman, a resident of an informal settlement in Patna, India, who experienced a stellar political rise and an equally spectacular fall. The analysis illuminates the multidimensional character of power—one may enjoy a strong exercise of power at one scale and relative powerlessness at another. The ensuing reflection reveals that the concept of empowerment fails to capture the multi-sidedness of power. In contrast, alternative vernacular terms provide an avenue to grasp the contextuality of power. Yet they feature a limitation common with the idea of empowerment(s)—they are conceptually fluid and therefore subject to normative reinterpretations.