The most common reference to empowerment by actors who want to make it play hardly contrasted roles, whether they join militant circles or those of management, requiers the renewal of the questioning on the signification and the impact of this strategy of intervention to which professional sociocultural developpers turn frequently. The contradictory uses of the concept of empowerment and the theoretical conflicts which it arouses are linked to major political choices from which social workers cannot exempt themselves if they wish to define a new professional framework in sync with the contemporary political issues. The author proposes in his text a criticism from a genealogical approach which consider concerned theories and practices according to what is at stake in matter of truth and power.