Events and empowerment: Progressing the research agenda

Abstract

Empowerment is often an implicit goal of events hosted in/by/for marginalised groups and communities. However, many studies into events and power focused on the negative aspects which resulted in disenfranchisement and disempowerment (Batty, 2016; Benfari et al., 1986; Clarke and Jepson, 2011). Our paper titled ‘Positive power events as temporary sites of power which “empower” marginalised groups’ (Walters et al., 2021) extended and reframed how power can be understood in the context of events, seeking to understand the processes that facilitate empowerment for marginalised groups. We included 9 different events from across New Zealand and Australia, finding that that empowerment through events is possible but requires an explicit focus on creating both social-structural and psychological dimensions of empowerment. In our conclusion, we identified a number of future directions for researchers to engage with the framework, applying it and testing it in other leisure contexts and refining it further. This interactive session will be a facilitated collaborative workshop aimed at progressing the research agenda around events and empowerment. The aims of the workshop are to: • Identify researchers interested in working with the empowerment framework • Form an international research consortium • Generate a joint research project • Progress the theoretical development of the framework • Identify potential funding sources