Strengths-Based Perspective

EMPOWERMENT THEORY

The Empowerment Theory is a theory directed towards the different systems an individual is in, with emphasis on the experienced powerlessness in relation to those systems. The environment plays a major role in this feeling of powerlessness as it is defined as:

...economic insecurity, absence of experience in the political arena, absence of access to information, lack of training in critical and abstract thought, physical and emotional stress, learned helplessness, and the aspects of a person’s emotional or intellectual makeup that prevent them from actualizing possibilities that do exist (Cox, 1989).

Society often blames the victims for the “lack of power” they experience, being oblivious of the power being withheld and abused by dominant and superior groups (Ryan, 1971). The theory focuses on stigmatized and marginalized groups with three central concepts, namely the development of a positive and full-of-potential sense of the self, construction of capacity and knowledge to read social and political realities of an individual’s environment, and cultivation of resources and competence to achieve individual and collective goals (Lee, 2001).

For this research, the Empowerment Theory will be one of its major guiding theories as it encompasses the goals of the research which is directed to retrieving and reclaiming what has been lost to the EJK surviving families and empowering them to become human rights advocates through the use of their resources, capabilities, and potentials.

STRENGTHS-BASED PERSPECTIVE

The Strengths-based Perspective is a perspective focused on the capacities, beliefs, skills, values, talents, possibilities, competencies, resources, and hopes that positively help an individual, family, community, and even a society, despite a difficult circumstance, trauma, and the like. It requires an accounting of what one knows and what one can do (Saleeby, 1996).

Using this perspective, the capacities, resources, beliefs, hopes, and values will be the focus in exploring how the EJK surviving families were able to deal and cope with the injustices that happened to them. Through this lens, the strengths of the families and the opportunities present around them will also be taken into consideration when discussing justice-claiming and their roles as human rights advocates.