Marie-Hélène Bacqué, professeure d’études urbaines à l’université Paris-Ouest-Nanterre, a codirigé plusieurs ouvrages collectifs, dont, à La Découverte, Le Quartier. Enjeux scientifiques, actions politiques et pratiques sociales (avec Jean-Yves Authier et France Guérin, 2007) et Démocratie participative, histoires et généalogies (avec Yves Sintomer, 2011).
Carole Biewener, professeure d’économie et d’études du genre à Simmons College (Boston), a notamment mené des recherches sur les politiques financières du gouvernement socialiste français dans les années 1980 et le développement communautaire et l’économie sociale aux États-Unis et au Canada.
Empowerment (the "authority to act"), was used by US social movements in the 1970s, and simultaneously adopted by feminists defending new development practices in the southern hemisphere. This concept has had a huge success since the 1990s in many very diverse social, intellectual and political circles.
This book offers the reader a critical outlook on the different uses of this concept and explains the many different interpretations. Resolutely defending the emancipation value of Empowerment, the authors shed light on the various viewpoints and highlight the issues at stake.
Marie-Hélène Bacqué is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Paris-Ouest-Nanterre, where she directs the research unit Mosaïques LAVUE. Her studies focus on working class neighborhoods in France and North America and on participative democracy.
Carole Biewener is a lecturer in Economics and Gender Studies at Simmons College (Boston). Her previous work focused on the financial policies of the French socialist government in the 1980’s and on community development and social economy in the USA and Canada.