What is power? Who has power? How do we share it?

By Roy Curtis  

“The use of the term ‘partnership’ does not mean that equality has been achieved.” Marian Barnes

Power in health and social care should reside with people who use services and other people with lived experience. But it doesn’t always. Services and support should be developed in accordance with the expressed needs and wishes of people with lived experience, but they’re not always.

Decision-making powers in some organisations are not always acquired through talent or knowledge that is useful to communities, but can be arbitrarily seized by individuals who are shameless enough to do so. It’s open to anyone to say what they want, represent what they want and project themselves however they want; they don’t have to be sincere, authentic and truthful. Shameless leaders take advantage of the good manners and fear of people who have been trained to think of themselves as deficient through a lifetime’s experience of having this message imposed on them.

I know that oppressed groups have access to accurate forms of knowledge about their oppression and the power relations that sustain it. I understand the idea and theoretical desirability of partnership working, but I don’t want to be a junior or token partner in initiatives and agendas that are grounded in and controlled by individuals and agencies who are distant from the issues that affect me.

I am interested in activity where people with lived experience play an instrumental role in:

·       Deciding what will be talked about

·       Guiding the discussion

·       Developing plans of action

·       Implementing plans and evaluating their effectiveness.

I reject rule by self-selecting elites who put the pursuit of their own interests above the needs of their neighbours and fellow citizens. I reject the fantasy of the ‘strong leader’ model promoted by these elites and their allies. I favour participatory democracy and collective working. I trust communities to define the issues that concern them and to find solutions to their problems through knowledge sharing and purposeful action.