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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 16, 2011
Empowerment meets narrative: listening to stories and creating settings
1Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 61820, USA.
Abstract:
Comments on and summarizes some of the themes of a special issue on empowerment. Extends empowerment theory with the suggestion that both research and practice would benefit from a narrative approach that links process to practice and attends to the voices of the people of interest. Narrative theory and method tends to open the field to a more inclusive attitude as to what counts as data and to cross-disciplinary insights as well as citizen collaboration. Communal narratives are defined at various levels of analysis, including the community, the organizational, and the cultural. A definition of empowerment that includes a concern with resources calls attention to the fact that communal narratives and personal stories are resources. Implications for personal and social change are suggested.
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