Power

The term power refers to practices and processes through which institutions, groups, and individuals arrange the social world and attempt to change it to advance their interests. Traditionally, it has been political geographers who have been concerned with power and power relations. Political geographers have had a strong interest in the territorial aims of groups and nations and in the deployment of power to achieve those aims. Attention to state policies and actions have relied on conceptions of power as force that is gained and wielded by one group over another group. Studies of power within political geography have tended to be descriptive analyses of accumulation and trajectory of force. Cultural geographers tended not to incorporate power centrally in their scholarship because of the conceptualization of landscapes as organic expressions of cultural groups. Marxist geographers made important contributions to theorizations of power by directly addressing structural processes shaping places. In general, however, there has been a pattern of geographers treating power as a realm of formal political institutions at the national and international scales and as separate from everyday life. More recently, scholars across several fields have been developing alternative theorizations of power that problematize traditional conceptualizations of power's structure and its operational scales.

Any one-sentence definition of power can be only a starting point for the understanding of a complex and multidimensional concept. Consequently, this discussion addresses three aspects of the term: (1) power as force, (2) power as a field of social practices, and (3) the issue of scale in the operation of power.

Traditionally, power has been equated with force and been framed as measurable and attributable to one or more groups. There are various types of force such[Page 381] as military, economic, and social. The analysis of power often has centered on the ability to project force or on the capacity to threaten force credibly. National governments gaining territory through military action are prime examples of power as force. There are two significant implications of the concept of power as force. The first is that power is seen as possessed or wielded by institutions. The second is that ascribing power to one social actor implies that other social actors lack power. The ability to use or project force is a stark element of contemporary social relations, as in the case of the ability of the United States to undertake military actions against other nations. Yet although force can be useful in social analysis, it can be understood as a limited perspective on power that ignores complex dynamics.

More recently, geographers have drawn on alternative and more expansive theorizations that problematize the idea of power as a phenomenon that social actors possess. Rather than understanding power as something that is held by individuals or groups, power can be framed as a set of multiple processes in which social actors are located. Actors do not posses power per se; rather, they align themselves in advantageous positions within dynamic processes of power. More expansive theorizations frame power as a multidimensional field in which actors of all types operate (e.g., governments, corporations, special interest groups, community groups, individuals). Actors, such as a mayor and a community organization, can be understood as positioned (either advantageously or disadvantageously) in a system of power. Systems of power have many dimensions such as corporate interests and neighborhood organization agendas. There are also specific constituencies such as public school teachers and both the workers and management of important companies. There are also distinct geographic interests such as downtown businesses and suburban real estate developers. In a system or field of power relations, no one group has a monopoly on power over an extended period of time, and rarely is one group completely powerless. Rather, groups maneuver in a social landscape where power is asserted and contested in numerous ways. Importantly, thinking of power as a process frames it as being produced by a wide range of actors, even those that are not explicitly political. In addition, understanding power as a field incorporates the ability to contest and resist as an important aspect of power. In the analysis of power, the processes can be just as important as, if not more important than, the end results of conflicts and struggles. The ability to project power is often contingent, finding expression and articulation only under specific circumstances. For example, a coalition of pro-growth urban interests groups may have success on a series of initiatives but also may have projects that fail to win acceptance. Similarly, a minority neighborhood may have a history of relative powerlessness in relation to a city government but may find success in stopping one particular project. Understanding power as a field of social relations frames it as structural yet dynamic and as both an outcome and a process. More expansive conceptualizations suggest that people and groups operate within a field of relations in which all groups and organizations have the ability to project and resist power in different ways.

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