How can we define or identify what power is? Is it something visible or invisible? Or can power be something like a force that makes things move and or stop from being in motion? Sometimes we think of it in many different ways and due to some people do associate power as the authority that we have over others, while others believe that is a measure of material possessions the people have.
However, it may be hard to exactly define the term power under one subject to represent a universal definition of all other subjects. So, what is very crucial in searching for the definition of power as well as seeking an in-depth understanding is to look up for detailed work on the topic of power from diverse subjects including social science, politics and political science, and even engineering subjects. It should therefore be noted that the meaning of the term power cannot be confined to a particular area or subject.
Furthermore, there should be no confusion of its users under the different fields of subjects in which its multiple meaning would sometimes appear to coincide in two or subject fields, while it may greatly differ in several other fields.
In the field of social science, power is broadly dealt with or seen under many sub-units. Some of us would look up for the term power in the point of personal attributes, which are more often referred to as characteristics.
Due to the unique personal characters that we all have, another group of individuals would think of it in different ways and search for an understanding of power under the individual’s methodologies of implementing strategies for a specific task and the ability to convert the available resources into final products or services. The last cohort of the people from our community/society may also take another approach, whereby it may focus on establishing the meaning and understanding of power by looking at it through the organization of the community/society on the basis of structural society’s relationship.
Even though social scientists seem to consent to one single idea of the meaning of power, social constructionists appear to differ compared to the other fellow sociologists. Deep studies on the constructionist view of power show to some extent that they shallowly addressed the power influence, and thus the theoretical work may not be adequate to resolve some of the hidden puzzling questions of the readers. In this connection, it may be assumed that constructionism partially addresses and accounts for the impacts or rather the influence of power on the society. While it is worth noting that constructionists mention several things related to the power, their work on some major factors or element of power such as the subject of materialism embodiment is partially handled.
Graphics and social illustrations. It is important to note and understand that power could be having an intimate relationship with embodiment. This was shown by Foucault and other sociologists who carried out experiment to provide some kind of evidence of the body response toward power. For many reasons, it might be hard for us to save one’s powers from such things like materials, personal character/ behavior, which in turn builds what is termed as personal behavior.
What is within, perhaps, makes what we call a person. But it should be considered that all that is within somebody may not be known. In most cases, the power within someone would make that what he/she wants to be. However, people are described not in one distinct way in their life because there is always the power to change or room of change. We therefore use language to describe ourselves depending on the circumstances in which we are found under certain time.
The words that we use differ widely to express what we are either in the basis of gender, race, ethnicity or even during explanation of our health conditions. The issues raised above were among some of matter of deep concern of constructionists Foucault for which he appeared to support the idea that power is a major factor in the driving out of discourse. On the side of Gergen, power may be a key in expressing and giving commands as it acts a warranting voice.