| Summary: | Empowerment has become an eloquent catchphrase in many development projects. While
commonly used, the implications of empowerment in development work have been criticized
because of the inherent assumption that someone has the power to give power to another. At
the same time, small scale farmers have been identified as key figures not only in rural
development, but also for national economic stability and growth. However, in reality rural
communities are largely left out of the design and implementation of the very projects that
intend to contribute to rural people’s empowerment.
By relying on theoretical roots of the meanings of empowerment from community psychology,
education and other fields, this study focuses on the need of all to feel empowered, all gaining
possibilities to empower oneself and contribute to empowering opportunities for others. The
aim is to explore contextual meanings of empowerment and the collaborative relationships
built between rural communities and development agencies through projects as the medium,
while recognizing varying levels of complications within project interactions. Intrapersonal
empowerment in this research has been the first to be impacted at greater levels, even in the
case where structural, governmental, managerial, spatial and time complications have kept the
program from achieving many of its intended goals. Still, empowerment can flourish with
personal involvement, both men and women’s participation as well as caring and respectful
interactions in project work. Through my qualitative fieldwork in Nicaragua, I consider
questions over the notions of ‘empowerment’ and focus on factors of empowering conditions
within project complexities. This case study approach, carried out primarily through methods
of participant observation and interviews, scrutinized the following aspects of empowerment:
learning through interaction and project processes from both community and organizational
perspectives, ownership and vision as well as participant involvement.
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