6 Power, powerlessness and stigma

So far, you have explored the nature of identity and have seen how it is both complex and shifting. Identity is also closely associated with the concept of power, as different aspects of a person’s identity can result in each individual being relatively more or less powerful in the context in which they live and work. Assumptions that are made about people can lead to misunderstanding and discrimination.

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Photograph of a homeless young man sleeping on a park bench.

The ways in which other people perceive us may not align with how we see ourselves. Identities are also closely associated with context, where we live, where we work and our own personal histories. As a social care professional and a representative of the agency you work for, you are in a position of relative power compared with the people that social care practitioners are working with. This power can take many forms but includes the power to:

• provide and withhold a service
• share or withhold information about a person’s needs, assessment or services
• provide or withhold physical care and support needed to participate in everyday life.

In his classic book Stigma (1963), the sociologist Erving Goffman argues that stigma is a relationship of devaluation in which an individual is disqualified from full social acceptance. Society establishes ways of categorising people and what are felt to be the ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ attributes for each category. Stigma, then, is essentially a belittling label that sticks, one that is applied to an individual’s ‘differentness’, their perceived non-conformity, deviance or simply difference in appearance or behaviour. That individual is then discredited. Stigma can result from physical or mental impairment, from known biographical records (such as a prison sentence or hospital stay) or from context (keeping ‘bad company’). It can be ascribed (for example, their father is a criminal, so they must be one too) or achieved (for example, becoming a delinquent). This means that the label may or may not be accurate, regardless of the meaning attached to it.

Goffman argues that society tends to regard the person with a stigma as different, and this leads to a form of discrimination that reduces their life chances. Of course, stigmatised individuals are likely to be very aware that others do not accept them and are not prepared to deal with them on an equal basis. Their own sensitivity to the perception of them by society may also lead to some incorporation of that judgement into their view of themselves.