When the global impacts the local: Revisiting Talbiyeh Camp Improvement Project

• A truly empowering project will be a threat to existing power structures and thus will elicit a reaction.
• Disempowering dynamics target the construction of negative meanings to the new power structure and related achievements.
• The regional socio-political context of empowerment will have a toll on the results of a project.
• Empowerment is a social re-order that will be challenged after a project is finished.
• A participatory project can only claim empowerment if it includes mechanisms to sustain it beyond the project's duration.

Literature often investigates participation before or during project implementation, but few investigations target the last phases of a participatory project or its aftermath. This investigation re-visits a case study that has been previously published and investigates the consequences of a participatory project using ethnographic methods. The investigation draws attention to the significance of avoiding static perspectives of empowerment, thus the paper focuses on the dynamics of power play. The paper resolves to an understanding that empowerment is a constant negotiation, thus anticipated change will be gradual (if supported) or successes may degenerate. Sustaining empowerment is important as existing power structures will utilize their networks and the socio-political context in order to regain hegemony and disempower rivals. The global context of empowerment and participation will have an impact on the agency permitted to the vulnerable groups.