ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how power manifests in peer mentoring settings. Analyses of power dynamics are often missing from evaluations of the practice or are submerged by claims of egalitarianism. Volunteering in these settings is a form of emotional labour, which can simultaneously empower people and burden them with new forms of subjection, which are not always recognised. This chapter draws upon several conceptions of power, which help to make sense of respondent narratives. These include feminist standpoint theories which highlight how people’s sense making can be credited or discredited by others, and critical education philosophy, which argues that pedagogy without critical reflection lacks consensus and serves to systematically organise people, rather than develop them. Utilising themes from the data and these theories, the chapter makes explicit some of the implicit transactions of power in mentoring settings.
