ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the way social groups articulated their concerns in the pursuit of personal and political change, with a particular focus on black feminist and disability/deaf activists' attempts to understand and change their circumstances. It is important that for some the struggle for black female emancipation was part of a wider struggle for human dignity and empowerment that was at heart a humanist, universalising, project. The Deaf community's struggle for social equality highlights the way in which empowerment was seen as something to be fought for, as a product of struggle against the perceived inequitable treatment of deaf people by the 'normal' hearing world. Empowerment as it is conceptualised and framed today has changed significantly in the years since it was first articulated within radical circles. This development can be further illustrated by showing the rise and incorporation of empowerment within the profession of social work.
