Structural And Symbolic Violence And Social Inequality Essay Example

) and positive ( absence of structural and cultural force ) peace ( p.183 ) .

In his article of `` Gender and Symbolic Violence '' , Pierre Bourdieu looks at force in a different position than Galtung and builds relationship between force and gender. Harmonizing to him, hegemonic power and the domination of this power on its victims can be called `` symbolic force '' . The male domination over the female can be strengthened with the aid of the constructs, linguistic communication, and symbols used in day-to-day life wonts. He does non intend to cut down the importance of physical force, alternatively, focal points on the building of misrecognition through the dominant discourses in assorted types of socio-cultural domination. Misrecognition is `` confirmed '' by dominant discourse and is embodied in adult females 's organic structure with `` concealed symbols '' . As he mentions this symbolic force is most of the clip unnoticed-partly unconsciousness- because the `` victims '' of this force may non acknowledge it, or go soundless because of their subordination or they feel daunted against the force. His prescription is explained as `` aˆ¦radical transmutation of the societal conditions of production of the temperaments that lead the dominated to take the point of position of the dominant on the dominant and on themselves. `` ( p.342 ) .

Paul Farmer 's `` personhood '' is much more related to structural issues. In `` On Suffering and Structural Violence '' , he tries to understand the mechanisms which cause societal forces from poorness to racism to be embodied as single experiences ( p.281 ) . He argues that what happens to Acephie

and Chouchou - the former dies because of AIDS and the latter dies because of political violence- are two different versions of structural force. He reaches the decision that inequality of power and its deductions on the hapless are because of the structural agreements of dominant powers of the universe. `` Silence of socioeconomically hapless people '' is because of the dominant power dealingss and its contemplations on Third World states. Harmonizing to him, what happened to Acephie and Chouchou is explained as ; `` these afflictions were non the consequence of accident or of force majeure ; they were the effect, direct or indirect, of human bureau '' ( p.286 ) He besides mentions that when people are enduring because of poorness, their entree to wellness, nutrient, and shelter are limited because of their societal position. His prescription is much more related to the `` humane '' and offers planetary safeguards. He thinks that alternatively of debating `` cultural differences '' , the societal inequalities should be reduced. The safeguards should concentrate on cut downing planetary poorness, by so we can interrupt the nexus between societal force and `` societal credence of poorness '' .

After the treatment on historically reproduced constructions of societal inequality and the lacks of accessing to wellness attention which is a basic human right in Third World states in Farmer 's article, we witness similar statements in Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg 's book of Righteous Dopefiend. The writers give us a portraiture of the agonies of the homeless and diacetylmorphine addicted community of Edgewater from their ain personal participant observations. In general, the book is so impressive because of

the usage of exposure, transcripts of recorded conversations and the writers ' participant observations. The writers display the day-to-day experiences of these heroin addicted-homeless people and analyze anthropologically those experiences. In the book, we see how those people suffer but besides seek to hang onto life one more twenty-four hours by affecting in burglary, twenty-four hours labour, panhandling and so on.

The book is constructed on the subjects of how force is seen in childhood, community of addicted people, in gender dealingss, in race issues, gender, power inequality, and so on. In the book, one of the chief statements is that while we enter into 20 first century, neoliberalism has produced a strata of rich people but besides a strata of `` lumpish '' in United States. Those people who could n't accommodate themselves into the changing system are marginalized and exposed to the structural force and victimized. They are Edgewater dopefiends now. On page 320, the writers mentioned that the load of lumpenization is more terrible in nonindustrialized societies. They add that there is non merely power inequality and poverty issue but besides poorness is being `` punished '' which is really the extension of symbolic force. Writers barrow from Bourdieu 's construct of misrecognition and symbolic force ( Bourdieu 2000 ) and use it to Foucault 's power/knowledge relationship. Harmonizing to them, `` policy arguments and intercessions frequently mystify big scale structural power vectors and inadvertently reassign incrimination to the powerless for their single failures and moral character lacks. '' ( p.297 ) . Here we see that, the heroin addicted-homeless people of Edgewater, Sanfransico, are non merely excluded from the whole societal web

and locked up into their ain societal web but besides blamed on them for their failure. Although the book criticizes so much of wellness attention system and the function of structural forces on the agony of those people, I believe I would be happy to read ethical considerations of the writers during their research.

In decision, this hebdomad 's reading were so impressive and must be thought on more. In add-on to that, I believe what they are speculating must be put into pattern and the consciousness on structural, cultural and symbolic force must be increased with policy recommendations. Or the project/practice countries should be determined and implemented by the field experts.