Groups That Live in Gaventa's Study Area A-Level Coursework

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groups that live in Gaventa's study area of Appalachia are the working class people who have lived there and work in the coal mining industry, and various representatives from the coal industry that own it. The former group is the powerless, whereas the latter group is the empowered. There is a degree of relative poverty for the people who live and work in the coal mining factories, who do not have significant financial resources. On the other hand, the individuals that own the coal mining company have substantial financial resources, which enable them to have power. Largely due to the money and the political connections of the mining company, it is able to assert its power to exploit the working class people, which profits the company and negatively impacts the homeowners.

The first dimension of social power predominantly pertains to behavior. It functions within a duality in which there are two groups, the empowered and the powerless. The empowered is able to assert its power over the powerless to make them do things they would not otherwise do. For instance, the U.S. government made Native Americans move to reservations. The second dimension of social power is more pervasive than the first, and involves merely excluding individuals from the process by which they can gain or assert power. For instance, denying women's suffrage for years is an example of this concept. The third power dimension is so complete than an empowered group can actually determine the needs of the powerless.

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An example of this concept is the introduction of crack cocaine to poor African-American drug dealers, whose monetary needs were determined by the government's supply of cocaine and no longer even consider questioning their detrimental lifestyle.

3. The author relates the three dimensions of power to one another by describing them as a progression in austerity and completeness. The first level is less pervasive than the second, while the third level is the most dominant form of power yet. It is possible to exert the third dimension of power without taking steps to explicitly assert the first and second dimensions individually. However, by asserting the third dimension of power, an empowered group is inherently exercising a form of dominance that includes the first and second dimensions as well. So in a comprehensive sense, Gaventa proposes the notion that the three dimensions of power work in accordance with one another to effectively limit the choices and the freedoms of the powerless at the hands of the empowered.

4. The three dimensions of power have a definite correlation between the coal miner's reluctance to participate in an effort to increase taxes on the land owned by the coal company. The minor's behavior is evocative of the second dimension of power, in that he feels excluded from the decision-making process. The coal miner is so used to being powerless that he does not think there is anything he….....

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