Empowerment and Properties rights. Social capital and public policy

KESSLER, GABRIEL

Austin, Texas, Institut of Latin American Studies-University of Texas at Austin

Workshop; Workshop Social Policy in Argentine, Chile and Colombia; 2004

Universtiy of Texas at Austin

Notes on Evaluating Empowerment by C. Smulovitz, M. Walton and P. Petesch (2003) proposes a definition of empowerment as "the increasing capacity of individuals or groups to make purposeful and effective choices in the interest of pursuing a better life for themselves". The case of San Francisco Solano is a social process especially well suited to studying the impact of a possible factor of empowerment on a community. In effect, it is a sample universe that initially was extremely homogeneous, and in which the access to property for some of its members was produced for reasons exogenous to their actions. Moreover, the Solano case will be useful to discuss elements of the theoretical framework proposed in the work cited above. To do so, we will analyze the empowerment of its residents, property owners and non-owners, in relation to institutions that influence their living conditions, such as the municipality, schools, health services, police, water, electric and telephone services, neighborhood organizations, and political parties.