Reconnaissance et meconnaissance: sur la méconnaissance: theorie de la violence symbolique

Abstract

Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence is an important contribution to the sociological understanding of recognition processes, which has been a central topic from his first ethnographical research in Kabylia to his last writings. The concept of symbolic capital accounts for an immaterial form of competition and accumulation aiming at prestige and recognition. The symbolic violence theory describes the process of accepting to submit to domination through social relations, a process based on recognition of the dominants by the dominated and misrecognition of the constitutive basis of this relation. Despite its contribution to the understanding of recognition processes, the sociology of symbolic violence shows certain limits. Bourdieu reduces the specificity of recognition conflicts to an instrumental frame inspired by classical economic theory instead of pursuing the investigation of their internal logic. Moreover, emphasis on the instituted order of misrecognition and the reproduction of relations of domination tends to minimize the instituting dimension of the conflict and the impact of normative expectations in social struggles. The article invites critical examination of the theory of symbolic violence in view of an approach to recognition processes that is not subjected to categories of economic thought but is able to re-inject into its core the instituting moment of the conflict.