During the past several decades, our understanding of power has become much more refined and useful. There is no consensus on a precise definition, and scholars continue to see its construction and use in a wide array of ways. Our goal here is not to seek consensus on what power is or how many forms it can take, but rather to foster a dialogue around the multiple definitions and perspectives that inform its deployment. As a fulcrum for the AD 2000 African Studies Association meetings, the question of how people create and use power offers the opportunity to understand better the agency individuals wield as they engage their cultures, nations, and societies, and to comprehend better the struggles people have undertaken to maintain or regain their agency. It is also an opportunity to address agency's complexity and consequences in Africa and elsewhere, and to emphasize the importance of people, whose experiences and expertise make the creation of power possible.
People bring multiple and divergent sources of power into the situations of their lives.
It is always unequally distributed and it is articulated and manipulated differently, according to different levels of knowledge and ability, for different reasons, and to different degrees of success. In any situation there are always many forms of power in action at once, and they may be complementary, contradictory, or in contention with one another. At the same time, these assemblages of power will themselves be in perpetual flux, as people create, reaffirm, transform, and engage them. We understand that power can be material, physical, and tangibly evident, and it can also be spiritual, psychological, conceptual, and hidden. It can result from massive effort, or the subtlest exercise of imagination.