Power and Privilege in Community Engagement

Gillian Kranias joins Andrea to explore the concepts of social power and privilege, and their role in community engagement. The dominant groups in our society- in Canada, in Ontario, in the towns we live in and in our communities- carry power and privilege, which means that non-dominant groups are historically and continue to be marginalized and oppressed. There can be a distance between those that carry social power, and those who lack it. Being aware of those distances, noticing who we do not hear from and who we are not connected to, and then beginning to listen, can help to shorten that distance.

Having power gives us access to resources: money, access to space, time, mental energy, staffing etc. Gillian suggests several ways to shift power to communities:

• Focus on relationships first!
• Handing over resources: for example, funding grass roots groups to do research or hire peer researchers, sharing office supplies or materials that groups might not be able to afford
• Support community to meet on their own to share their ideas and prepare for meetings with staff
• Check in regularly (perhaps at the beginning of each meeting) and provide ongoing opportunities for dialogue. Participatory evaluation techniques such as “Hands-on rating” can be a good exercise to start conversations. 

Gillian’s closing piece of advice is to think about what relationships can support you in an ongoing way in your learning journey to becoming better professionals. Perhaps that’s a peer or colleague that you can connect with regularly, or perhaps journaling or reflecting on your own. This helps to make an ongoing commitment to the work.

Suggested Resources

First and foremost, let’s “change who we are learning from…” Here are some podcasts made by community members we are listening to:

• Crackdown is a monthly podcast about drugs, drug policy and the drug war led by drug user activists and supported by research.
• What’s Your Safe Word? Declarations of Resistance is a bi-weekly podcast from WomenatthecentrE, a Canadian incorporated organization created by survivors of gendered violence.
• Media Indigena is a weekly current affairs roundtable featuring guests from the worlds of activism, arts, academia and beyond join Rick for lively, insightful conversation that goes beyond the headlines to get at what matters most to Indigenous peoples.
• Talking Poverty Podcast from the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition.
• Secret Life of Canada, a history podcast about the country you know and the stories you don’t.

Here are some resources designed by professionals for professionals:

• The Collaborative leadership in Practice (CLiP) website has a number of resources, stories, research and tools to help you decentre power and share resources.
• Becoming an Ally in Partnerships – Powerpoint presentation by Lauren Burrows. She explains the triangle of oppression, and how it is often like an iceberg (much happens below the surface of everyday awareness). The title of Lauren’s webworkshop recalls the book Becoming an Ally by Anne Bishop
• Self-evaluation Tool for Action in Partnership – Angèle Bilodeau et al. 2017. This evidence-based tool includes 18 questions related to conditions for ensuring our partnerships really are places for equitable, innovative, and collective action. This tool comes from Quebec, where equitable community engagement thinking is thriving – in French.  
• Hands-on Rating on page 15 of the Participatory Evaluation Toolkit – This technique, used with any ladder or continuum of community engagement, allows for process reflections. Once ratings have been made, affinity group discussions (i.e. community members alone together) can bring out reflections on areas of consensus and difference and learn from the people around you.
• Bringing stakeholders together for urban health equity: hallmarks of a compromised process Amy Katz et al. 2015. The article highlights all the complexities of power and marginalization, and the different kinds of “harm” that can be caused when municipalities practice community engagement that is ignorant to the complexities of power. It puts into question whether communities benefit from getting involved in our engagement efforts, if it compromises their time or positioning to organize independently.