Symbolic Violence as the Object of Sociological Research: Inter Bourdieu and Zizek

Abstract

The article investigates the phenomenon of symbolic violence by synthesizing ideas of structuralist constructivism by Bourdieu and post-Marxism psychoanalytic S. Zizek. The author deduces the phenomenological characteristics of symbolic violence, which distinguish them from the field of related phenomena: the latency, the desire to be included in everyday life, the heterogeneity of the object, dialectical connection with the physical violence, the transposition of the capital logic in its production, etc. The author considers the process on the level of practice and interprets it as imposing symbols and meanings in everyday life to establish and maintain relations of power. The author’s definition of symbolic violence, classification of symbolic violence, in particular, it includes such species as the subjective (direct, specific, personalized) and objective (systematic, generated by the social structure) are defined. Such variables in the formula of symbolic violence, as: subject, object, methods, and the nature of the imposition of the meaning and symbols, it’s legitimization, relations of power and domination – are developed and reproduced. Functioning of symbolic violence practices is investigated on the example of modern Ukraine’s life case - renaming of toponymic objects in Kharkov.