THE POWER CONTINUUM EXPLAINED
From Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children's Literature, by Maria
Jose Botelho and Masha Rudman:
Domination, collusion, resistance, and agency
are historical and sociopolitical possibilities
available for selfhood, for being in the world.
These patterns of power relations are not fixed but fluctuate over time, depending on particular contexts and interactions among people. Our goal as readers is not to freeze or isolate these positions, but to demonstrate their fluidity by examining the social processes of power in texts and demonstrate how these positions are constructed. With any of these positions, with the recognition that there is a power matrix or how it works, people may help themselves move along the continuum to agency.
The first position in the continuum is that of domination.
This position’s attributes include dehumanization, victimization, imposition from external sources, and unequal power based on race, class, and gender.
Sometimes the domination occurs de facto because of existing social constructs and systems.
Sometimes, it is interpersonal and used to manipulate the behavior of the particular individuals.
It is always dehumanizing.
The second position is collusion.
This position differs from domination, mostly in the characteristic of internalized oppression or domination. Collusion may be conscious or unconscious.
Colluders remain silent even
when they have knowledge of wrongdoing.
Towards the end of the continuum of collusion, colluders become conscious of their power to take action,
while conspiring with dominant ideologies
to gain power to resist and gain agency.
Resistance is active questioning.
It is not haphazard nor purely reactive.
It is an unwillingness to be universalized and essentialized.
It is by definition
oppositional to imposition and coercive power.
Agency is initiation and power.
An agent can be an agent
as well as another subject position.
Agency is understanding.
(Botelho and Rudman, p. 118-119)
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