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Urban, Glen L., and John R. Hauser. Design and Marketing attempts to understand how power works without
Copyright 2011. SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or
this case, doxa, habitus, (mis)recognition, and, more in which power may exist in relations that make it
generally, Bourdieus theory of power. The develop- misrecognized: that is, in which its power is unseen.
ment of the concept is linked with Bourdieus long- This is closely linked with his notion of habitushis
standing attempt to problematize the line between term for the ways in which social relations and social
freedom and constraint within relations of domina- rules are literally embodied. In this way, they do not
tion. Above all, it has to be seen in the context of his simply exist out there but are part of who we are.
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AN: 474266 ; Southerton, Dale.; Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture
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Symbolic Violence 1423
Does this mean, then, that relations of symbolic 1997). They may simultaneously accept and refuse
Copyright 2011. SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or
violence are always with us? Bourdieu is character- their location as other to a masculine norm.
istically pessimistic about the possibilities of effec- But another question arises from this concept: if
tive resistance, not because he characterizes people symbolic violence is so naturalized, so legitimated
as passive (People are not fools [Bourdieu and that we fail to see its workings as violence, how is
Wacquant 2002, 130]) but because of the character Bourdieu (or any other analyst) able to see through
of relations of domination. His view can be summed it? As Bourdieu points out, intellectuals are steeped in
up in the following passage: doxic relations and therefore unlikely to easily recog-
nize symbolic violence. Indeed, they are likely, given
When the dominated quest for distinction leads the
their legitimated status, to be involved in exercising it
dominated to affirm what distinguishes them, that
(see Bourdieu 1988). The answer to this conundrum
is, that in the name of which they are dominated and
would seem to lie in the distinctive form of reflexivity
constituted as vulgar, do we have to talk of resistance?
that Bourdieu advocates throughout his work. This
In other words, if, in order to resist, I have no other
reflexivity consists of a sociological investigation
resource than to lay claim to that in the name of
of the location of the researchers in social space (in
which I am dominated, is this resistance? Second
relation to their class, gender, etc., but also in rela-
question: when, on the other hand, the dominated
tion to their discipline, their university, etc.). More
work at destroying what marks them out as vulgar
profoundly, Bourdieu advocates a third form of
and at appropriating that in relation to which they
reflexivity: that which interrogates the intellectualist
appear as vulgar (for instance, in France, the Parisian
biasthe unthought categories that govern specific
accent). Is this submission? I think this is an insoluble
disciplines and the academic world in generaland
contradiction. . . . Resistance may be alienating and
activity that, he argues, cannot be undertaken by the
submission may be liberating. Such is the paradox of
researcher alone, but must be a collective endeavor.
the dominated, and there is no way out of it.
For Bourdieu, then, one of the tasks of a reflexive
(Bourdieu 1990, 155)
sociology is precisely to expose and to analyze the
Nevertheless, it is clear that within Bourdieus hidden relations of domination encapsulated in sym-
schema, change can occur in the interaction of field bolic violence (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002).
and habitus, so it would be mistaken to see his work Aside from exegesis, symbolic violence has only
as locking us into endlessly repeating cycles of the relatively rarely been taken up and used in any
same forms of symbolic violence. Yet, unlike the extended way by other analysts. However, Angela
Marxist doctrine of false consciousness, it is not McRobbie provides a vivid and compelling account
something that can be sloughed off with the correct of its use in contemporary British makeover televi-
analysis or the achievement of sufficient knowledge: sion programs. As McRobbie points out, the pro-
Because the foundation of symbolic violence lies not grams only work because people (apparently freely)
in mystified consciousnesses that only need to be submit themselves to the viciousness and nastiness of
enlightened but in dispositions attuned to the the process, presumably in pursuit of some other goal.
structure of domination of which they are the Yet, the viciousness remains and is often a vehicle for
product, the relation of complicity that the victims of class-based insults and expressions of superiority on
symbolic domination grant to the dominant can the part of the presenters. Why, we might ask, would
only be broken through a radical transformation of anyone undergo this? In this respect, both partici-
the social conditions of production that lead the pants and presenters indeed seem to be enmeshed
dominated to take the point of view of the dominant in a mutually complicit relationship of symbolic
and on themselves. (Bourdieu 2001, 4142) violence that passes as entertainment through self-
improvement. McRobbies analysis gives flesh to a
This raises the question of whether Bourdieu
applicable copyright law.
EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 3/6/2017 9:52 PM via VANDERBILT UNIV
AN: 474266 ; Southerton, Dale.; Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture
Account: s8863559
1424 Systems of Provision
about the consumption of all commodities across norms governing the rules of appropriate consump-
all societies. The problem with this, according to the tion with regard to any given commodity are struc-
systems of provision perspective, is that it overlooks tured vertically by the system of provision just as the
the importance of other explanatory factors as well notion of consumer choice is a property of the system
as the relationship between these factors and the dif- underpinning the delivery of the commodity in ques-
ferences that exist between different commodities by tion. For example, Fine suggests that the quantity of
EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 3/6/2017 9:52 PM via VANDERBILT UNIV
AN: 474266 ; Southerton, Dale.; Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture
Account: s8863559