Author

John Gaventa atttended Vanderbilt University in Tennessee from where he graduated. He went on to become a Rhodes Scholar, and received his doctorate from Oxford University in England. Gaventa has helped lead an adult education program in Tennessee since 1976. The author comes across as intellectually adept and grounded in the local milieu of the region that he writes about in the book. The author is a widely recognized Appalachian scholar. (back cover)

This book has earned several awards: the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award of the American Political Science Association, the V.O. Key Book Award of the Southern Political Science Association, the Lillian Smith Book Award of the Southern Regional Council, and the W.D. Weatherford Book Award. It also was the first runner-up in the first annual Robert F. Kennedy Book Award competition. This has been a well-received book by an accomplished author. (back cover)

Theoretical Orientation and Research Methodology

Where this book differs from other mainstream studies of power is it deals with non-decisions, non-issues, and non-events that are oversight to the traditional studies of power dynamics. The players that are not immediately visible, the issues that did not show up on the agenda in the first place, the events that never occurred, the protests that never got organized, the disgruntled that never made news or their way to the decision-making process - all of these are of profound interest to Gaventa who in the powerlessness of the locals he studies sees the shortcomings of democracy as we know it.

Gaventa has an educational background that suggests he is well-grounded in the mainstream theories that deal with power, but he makes it explicit that they are grossly inadequate. That departure makes this book stand out from the run of the mill studies of power relationships that focus on the apparent and the hackneyed and do little to alter the fundamentals whereby some groups stay on in the corridors of power while others get systematically marginalized from the same.

The author makes use of what he refers to as a three-dimensional approach to the study of power with the emphasis in the book being on the third dimension. "Once having prevailed in the decision-making of the organization (first dimension), the leaders develop barriers for the exclusion of certain participants and issues (second dimension), having a further effect upon their consciousness of their own power (third dimension)." (168)

One of the books greatest strengths is it draws upon over a century of history, otherwise there lay the danger the book might have ended up long on theoretical tangents but short on their meanings they might hold for the situation on the ground. The book starts by discussion on pre-industrial Appalachia, then talks about the subsequent corporate penetration of the region, and about coal mines. From those early developments, the author delineates patterns of inequality that have stood firm even while the economy looks very different today than it did back then. Even as the region attempts to make its modest strides towards post-industrial forms of economic activities, the power dynamics remain as they were in the heyday of the coal mines, broadly speaking.

The Main Findings Of The Study

There is massive inequality in the Valley near the Cumberland Gap stretched across parts of Tennessee and Kentucky that the author focuses on. That is also true for the Appalachian region at-large. There are local elites working in conjunction with the absentee powerholders to maintain that superstructure of imbalanced power that has been in place for over a century now. There's much associated discontent among the locals that does escape the attention of the outside observers because power is too narrowly defined.

The corporate interests early on managed to establish the broad paradigms of power equations to suite their interests. Subsequent struggles of the locals have thus been severely circumcised. The repeated defeats of the powerless and the ability of the powerful to mobilize bias has led to much fatalism among the locals. They end up not challenging the powerful anymore.

The institutions - the corporations, the government agencies, as well the unions - tend to favor the powerful by letting the local elites collude with the absentee powerholders. The locals get denied opportunities to cultivate the resources necessary for political action: skills, organization, and consciousness.

The powerful are artful about pushing the real conflicts off the table and instead highlighting lesser, marginal conflicts. The inequality once put in place is sustained by inertia: "working conditions, unfair taxation, environmental destruction, corrupt governmental on union leadership, welfare and health benefits, job security" and others. (257)

The powerless have to be able to develop issues and actions. They must organize, inform and cultivate sustaining values to counter the prevailing bias favoring the powerful. They must confront the local barriers to power to overcome them and thus become part of the decision-making process. The conflict has to be transformed from its latent, repressed states "to be amongst relatively competing groups, upon clearly conceived interests, in an open arena." (258)

The powerless also need to align with the powerless elsewhere as well as the others similarly powerful as the opponents. The local elites act as the fronts of the absentee wielders of power whose aloofness can sometimes make them look noble and with good intentions to the powerless and hence further contributing to their powerlessness.

These observations from the Appalachia have stark relevance for the powerless elsewhere - rural and urban, subcultural and mainstream, and black and white.

The Implications Of These Findings For The Study Of Community Power, Social Stratification, and Social Change In Appalachia

Inflation in the national economy can not be cured by having the mom and pop store round the corner lower its prices while the rest of the town and the country remains oblivious and uninterested. That is true also about power dynamics. Too often the powerless groups of people like the Appalachians get told, if only they got themselves educated, and worked harder, and saved and invested, their lot will improve. Work hard and play by the rules and you can have the riches, they get told. This book smashes such suggestions in the face. Of course, all those suggestions hold value, as they would for any family in any income bracket, but no matter how many Berea Colleges you set up, and how much work ethic you instill into these already hard-working Appalachians, their relative station on the national map can not change also the broader power equations themselves are changed.

There's much local politics within the Appalachian region. There are local conflicts, and local fights. There are dysfunctional families amongst functional families like everywhere else and like in all income brackets and parts of the country. Not much is unique to the region there. Where the uniqueness lies is in where the region as a totality figures out for those who hold the real power, who reside tens of thousands of miles away but have major say in the life opportunities or lack thereof of these locals. This book is a major challenge to those absentee "landlords" so emotionally detached from the local conditions.

But then such a broad approach also helps better understand the local conditions in that local elites are no longer seen independent from those absentee wielders of power. Instead, they are seen to act in concert, and such an understanding helps challenge also the local dynamics.

They say politics is the art of the possible. To express sorrow over a mud-sludge is emotional; to actually do something about it is political. Much of the book is about the intricate understandings which would make broad action possible. In a way, this is a handbook for action on the ground.

Criticism And Evaluation Of The Study And The Main Conclusions Of The Author

I grew up in what is the second poorest country in the world as a member of a community that is not considered part of the national mainstream. I was actively politicking in Nepal for a few years between high school and college. I was active in the student government on campus my first two years and the relative powerlessness of the students was one of the issues I gave thought to. I think protest politics has its purpose, but ultimately all parties have to be able to come about to working within the system. Sometimes that might mean broadening the system to include the traditionally marginalized, but at the end of the day, it is still about getting into the system to try and see if you can do better. This book is bold and yet pragmatic. It steers clear of that mushy idealism that makes you feel good but at the end of the day leaves you high and dry.

All along while I was reading this book, I was reminded of my country of origin and the Global South at-large and how the global political and economic equations have been broadly unfair. While the Appalachia was being caricatured a century back, the so-called "Third World" was being colonized. Much of the powerlessness this book talks about in the case of the Appalachians is much more acute for the peoples of the Global South on world stage.

As an international student attending college in the United States, I often get asked if I plan to "go back" or "go home." Such curiosities are myopic. I am forever attached to my South Asian heritage and, by association, I see the interests of my part of the world tied to that of the rest of the Global South. I think I can make more meaningful contributions by trying to confront the "absentee landlords" than by going to face the local "union leaders" who are but the pawns for the invisible players. This book on drawing the focus on the macro roots and implications of decision-making and power distributions speaks to me personally.


Gaventa, John. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Chicago: Illinois UP, 1980.



Recommended: Yes