One of the most useful concepts I’ve come across in recent years is a disaggregation of the word “power” that goes right back to the 17th-century thinker Baruch Spinoza. Rosi Braidotti’s post-human theory takes his notion of “speaking truth to power” and splits the English word “power” into two definitions:

• Potestas (in Latin, “puissance” in French)  - hierarchy, inequality, power-as-usual
• Potentia (in Latin, “pouvoir” in French) - networks, new ideas, collective endeavour

As educators working within organisational hierarchies, we are where we are in the system. Sometimes it feels as though we have no wriggle room, so weighed down are we by the demands of institutional compliance.

As we rise through the hierarchy, we may have less compliance thrust upon us but are expected to show obedience to the status quo, to keep hold of our potestas. We expect much of our leaders, but it seems as difficult to create space for new thinking at the top of a hierarchy as it does at the bottom. Braidotti writes of potestas as entrapment: once on the hamster-wheel of career progression, that feels very true.

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The emotional labour of being involved in FE at any level is holding that tension between meeting compliance needs and teaching/managing in a way that provides the most fertile environment for learning. In my role with the national Advanced Practitioner Programme (#APConnect), funded by the Education and Training Foundation, it’s evident that interesting developments are happening in the middle: advanced practitioners (APs) with a remit for improving teaching and learning within their organisations, often as part of the quality team, are proving to be the engine room of cultural change.

Despite minimal compensation in the form of pay or remission for some, their activities are beginning to ripple out. To use Braidotti’s term, these are practitioners who are empowered by their potentia - the activist energy which they replenish in constellation with others.

If this is a deliberate leadership strategy (I’d love to think it might be) it’s a good one, and for most of the people involved in the #APConnect project it’s paying off. The work is getting interesting again. I observed something similar during the Community Learning Mental Health Research (#CLMH); one of the (welcome) challenges for the project team was that after Year 1 many participants took the road to new challenges, hopefully taking a good helping of iconoclastic thinking with them: resisting the old and seeking out the new. Not a problem if others are there to take their place, bringing their diversity into the game.

Flex your potentia 

So I’m thinking it’s worth bringing the potestas/potentia split into the public domain. FE often views theory as irrelevant (due to being force-fed irrelevant theory)  but I’ve never been afraid to stand on the shoulders of other thinkers. Practice-based research is great for testing out what’s already there but for new ideas you can’t beat a philosopher - it’s up to us to make abstract concepts workable in our own contexts.

That the sector is awash with jargon (and resistant to it) is something I appreciate. But recently, I’ve observed talented educators shying away from using the word “power” in relation to their practice and I don’t believe this comes from a confident place. I also think it’s counterproductive. As a profession, it’s inevitable that we lack self-esteem after decades of heavy-duty compliance and resisting an association with “power” is symptomatic of that. But if we tell ourselves we have no power, we won’t believe in our own capacity to change what’s around us.

Flexing potentia is a satisfying way of developing personal agency and self-belief. Make no mistake: despite mission statement rhetoric neither organisations nor individuals can empower (or transform). We can only create conditions where individuals empower (or transform) themselves, ideally in community with others.

The growing #FEResearch community is an outstanding example of this. Sanctioned by no higher power, educators have found ways of gathering together as critical friends, to ignite a sadly neglected FE research culture. Understanding that, no matter what our place may be in the hierarchy, potentia belongs to us, is where real change starts.

Lou Mycroft is a facilitator, writer and public speaker. She tweets @LouMycroft