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lexicon

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Lexicon

The following page presents a lexicon of words, people and places related to this project.

A

B

C

Care

Conviviality

D

E

F

Freire, Paulo

G

H

Hospitality

I

Illich, Ivan

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Power

Many approaches to the concept of ‘power’ have been built around the idea of institutional and governmental control (Krippendorf1), 1995). Despite these stances being useful to under-stand the complex web of power relations in the context of a project, for us ‘power’ finds special relevance as something referring to the individual and collective capabilities present and distributed throughout society (Foucault2), 1980; Holloway3), 2002). This implies taking into consideration situations of domination within society, yet focusing on and highlighting the capabilities of individuals and groups as means to break free from them. Following Holloway and Foucault, the focus on power is made on the ‘power-to’, as it is related to doing, instead of the ‘power-over’, which refers to conditions of domination: “Whereas power-to is a uniting, a bringing together of my doing with the doing of others, the exercise of power-over is a separation.” (Holloway, 2002, p. 29). The power-to is about my doing (action), but embedded within the doing of others, which brings forth the collective potential of power. Social and citizen movements are a clear example of how power can be exercised and not only resisted. Similar arguments seem to have driven the final speech of Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940), when he said that the real power resides in men, not in one man, but in all men (human beings), for we are the ones who “have the power to build machines, to build happiness and to make life free and beautiful” (Chaplin4), 1940).

Q

R

S

Solidarity

T

U

V

X

Y

Z

1)
Krippendorff, K. (1995). Undoing power. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 12(2), 101-132.
2)
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books.
3)
Holloway, J. (2002). Change the world without taking power. London: Pluto Press.
4)
Chaplin, C. (Producer & Director). (1940). The great dictator [Motion picture]. USA: Charles Chaplin Film Corporation.
lexicon.1520590735.txt.gz · Last modified: 2018/03/09 11:18 by calderonp