Status and economic capital are both necessary to maintain dominance in a system, rather than just ownership over the means of production alone. Bourdieu suggested that cultural roles are more dominant than economic forces in determining how hierarchies of power are situated and reproduced across societies.
The concept of symbolic power was first introduced by Pierre Bourdieu in La Distinction. Louis Althusser further developed it in his writing on what he called Ideological State Apparatuses, arguing that the latter's power is partly based on symbolic repression. Dominant actors in a society must consciously accept that such an ideological order exists for unequal social relationships to take place. Without the illusion of natural law governing such transactions of social and physical worth, the proletariat would be unwilling to consciously support social relations that counteract their own interests. To Engels, under capitalism, objects and social relationships themselves are embedded with societal value that is dependent upon the actors who engage in interactions themselves. The concept of symbolic power may be seen as grounded in Friedrich Engels' concept of false consciousness. While symbolic power requires a dominator, it also requires the dominated to accept their position in the exchange of social value that occurs between them. Symbolic power maintains its effect through the mis-recognition of power relations situated in the social matrix of a given field. Symbolic power accounts for discipline used against another to confirm that individual's placement in a social hierarchy, at times in individual relations but most basically through system institutions also.Īlso referred to as soft power, symbolic power includes actions that have discriminatory or injurious meaning or implications, such as gender dominance and racism.
The concept of symbolic power, also known as symbolic domination ( domination symbolique in French language) or symbolic violence, was first introduced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to account for the tacit, almost unconscious modes of cultural/social domination occurring within the everyday social habits maintained over conscious subjects. For the mathematical term, see Symbolic power of a prime ideal.
This article is about the sociological concept.
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