„Intersectional strengthening“ - Participatory fundamental research of dimensioning empowerment and powersharing (InterEmP)
Subproject: „Participatory Situational Analysis and Network Coordination“
Expert Group on Democracy Promotion and Democratic Practice
Project head: Dr. Yvonne Albrecht
Project team members: Amina Nasser , Josephine Richards-Jaschke
The project focuses on developing conceptualisations and application-oriented strategies for intersectional empowerment and powersharing for women and girls from migrant communities through diversity-sensitive support and counselling practices. Empowerment is an important factor in increasing educational opportunities and a central prerequisite for structural powersharing. However, practitioners criticise the approach as ‘vague’ and ‘imprecise’, although it is used (Weiberg et al. 2021, p. 70). It is often unclear whether empowerment is a method, an attitude, a theory or a political strategy for action (Farrokhzad 2019, p. 57). Furthermore, empowerment and intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989) are not sufficiently linked: often only one category of diversity is focused on. This does not fit with groups with multidimensional barriers to access and participation, such as women and girls with a migrant background. Tailored concepts in theory and practice are therefore indispensable. It is also recognised that empowerment requires powersharing for being effective. The project will conceptualise intersectional empowerment and power sharing in a science-practice network, test it in practice in a pilot project and provide good practice recommendations for political governance.
Funding: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (Third-party funding)
Cooperation partner: