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Symbolic Violence

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"It refers specifically to the mechanisms that lead those who are subordinated to "misrecognize" inequality as the natural order of things and to blame themselves for their location in their society's hierarchies.

Through symbolic violence, inequalities are made to appear commonsensical, and they reproduce themselves preconsciously in the ontological categories shared within classes and within social groups in any given society. Symbolic violence is an especially useful concept for critiquing homelessness in the United States because most people (including the Edgewater comeless themselves) consider drug use and poverty to be caused by personal character flaws or sinful behaviour. We hope to deconstruct the generalized misrecognition of the ways everyday, intimate and structural violence generate (and are legitimized by) symbolic violence."
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Structural and Symbolic Violence Lecture.mov. Terminology: ontic/ontological, epistemic/epistemological? (Discussion) - PhilPapers. The Baudrillardian Symbolic, 9/11, and the War of Good and Evil. Wacquant Prison as Ghetto. Nicki Minaj - Anaconda. Selling sex sells: Representations of prostitution and the sex industry in sexualised popular culture as symbolic violence. The mainstreaming of the sex industry into popular culture is evident in the proliferation of commercial sex premises in urban spaces and the popularity of pimp/ho chic. In this paper we explore representations of prostitution, including what stories are told about prostitution in films and television and how the dynamics of prostitution are presented as a template for intimate relationships. Throughout the paper we contrast this glamourisation with the empirical realities of prostitution that include violence and psychosocial harm. While the sex industry is portrayed as empowering and entertaining in popular culture, its existence as cause and consequence of gender inequality is unchallenged.

We suggest that these representations constitute symbolic violence, obscuring the gendered inequality of commercial sex and the physical, sexual and psychological harm experienced by women in prostitution. Choose an option to locate/access this article: Notes on ‘What Not To Wear’ and post-feminist symbolic violence - McRobbie - 2004 - The Sociological Review. Righteous Dopefiend - Philippe Bourgois, Jeffrey Schonberg. Description of concept.