APPENDIX A:
EMPOWERMENT ECONOMICS Dominant approaches to assets focus exclusively on individual behavior and center a very limited notion of assets as moneyed wealth. This framework ignores the historical and contemporary relationships of power that exist between marginalized communities and the economic system. These field-level blind spots perpetuate harmful narratives about individual and community capabilities, ignore local practices of resistance and resilience, and treat economic justice as separate from social justice. This traditional approach fails to appropriately recognize how race, gender, nation, and culture mediate individual and community participation in economic systems. Empowerment Economics is a multigenerational, culturally responsive approach to building wealth and power in low-income Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and other communities of color. Empowerment Economics seeks to disrupt this western-centric foundation that has fueled decades of anti-poverty and economic empowerment agendas. In its place, Empowerment Economics provides a space to innovate, advance, and sustain work that centers the interconnected nature of racial and economic justice. This approach begins with situating each community’s past and current well-being within the context of economic, political, and
racial systems, and critically examining those systems. A community’s strengths, cultures, values, and programs provide a path for deeper involvement, cooperation, and ownership by the local community. The Empowerment Economics framework, case studies, reports, and core elements are geared towards action in communities from the ground up. This approach is essential because we believe that grassroots action can lead to significant systemic change. Our work centers equitable relationships with organizations and communities practicing Empowerment Economics. Research is participatory in that we conduct studies to answer questions that are actionable and useful. Our primary audience is our partner organizations, followed by a broader network of people motivated to challenge and disrupt existing inequities of wealth and power. Empowerment Economics’ research model is designed to catalyze action by BIPOC leaders and practitioners, funders and policymakers to shift grantmaking and policymaking practices towards equity. Empowerment Economics can illuminate community-driven priorities for funders to support and measure, with the goal of reallocating and distributing wealth more equitably.
35 Balance and Belonging: Empowerment Economics and Community Development at NAYA
