ABSTRACT
The notion of empowerment has become a fashionable one, claimed as a fundamental value in a whole range of professions, across political divisions, and in social science research theory and practices. A central feature of such analysis must be recognition that the field of social research is a myriad of unstable and heterogeneous relations of power. And it is such an element which is necessary to any conceptual framework grounded in social justice. The chapter focuses on a number of theorists to bring together those dimensions which seem important in the development of a conceptual framework for empowering methodologies. The employment of powerful abstractions which enable ethnographers to assert their possession of the 'heart' of a culture, lacking reflexivity and suggesting that true statements about another culture can be made. The structures of a racist society are left intact and the way is opened up for an accommodation of potentially disruptive knowledge to established beliefs and practices.
