بررسی مفهوم توانمندسازی در داستان های احمد اکبرپور

ahmad akbarpour (1970) is an iranian writer of children’s and young adults’ fiction who has been highly influential in the domain of iranian modern children’s literature due to his postmodern narrative style. he has published many novels in which there always exists an interesting relationship between the writer and the characters. the issues of power and empowerment play a very important role in everyday life. the adults are likely to impose their dominancy over the children using all their power either by punishment or other familiar ways. the writers of children's literature-mostly being adults themselves-include these issues in their works. however, there are some writers who sometimes try to break the hierarchical power relationship between adults and children in order to empower the children. in this paper, the researchers have used elisheva sadan's theory of empowerment mentioned in her, empowerment and community planning: theory and practice (2004), and have applied this theory to akbarpour’s three works: i am not dad’s servant (man nokar-e baba nistam), ghoul and the bicycle (ghul va docharkhe) and the southern dreams (royahaye jonubi). finally, the paper introduces some empowering tactics that akbarpour has employed.   key words: children’s literature; theory of empowerment; theory of empowerment in children’s literature; ahmad akbarpour.