Symbolic violence: Reshaping post-patriarchal discourses on gender
Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence: Part B
ISBN: 978-1-78350-893-8
Publication date: 18 June 2014
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the chapter is to overcome interpretative dualism on migrant and native women’s victimization by proposing a Bourdieusian approach to the continuities of symbolic violence within post-patriarchal regimes of women’s freedom.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual chapter examines the Bourdieusian approach to some empirical research and continues with questions for feminist thought. The author discusses sociological research in Italy and in European contexts, and highlights the many “gazes” which can reveal the illusio of universal gender rights and the neo-colonial discourse on migrant women.
Findings
Research finds that the participant objectivation attitude and concern for disturbing dissonances in the habitus and body hexis of “others” produces tools for revealing the misrecognition of domination. At the theoretical level, the chapter shows how the plurality of hegemonic discourses on symbolic violence endorses not only social forces reproducing neo-colonial stratifications of gender, sense of belonging and class positions, but also ambivalent experiences of domination and freedom for women.
Research implications
The chapter aims to motivate the encounter between Bourdieu’s view of male domination and classical feminist constructs as lived body experience, sexual contract, and traffic in women.
Originality/value
The chapter provides an innovative analysis intersecting Bourdieu’s constructs and feminist thought in re-considering “gender-women” as a privileged locus for feminist discourse. Gender dualism under the lens of symbolic violence is viewed as both an appearance and a structural field within the dynamics of domination.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
I am pleased to acknowledge the stimulating collaboration with members of the Research Group on Gender, Citizenship and Multidiversity of the University of Padova, who have long shared with me discussions on the questions posed in this chapter, especially with Carla Bertolo, Francesca Alice Vianello, Angela Toffanin, Paolo Gusmeroli, Giulia D’Odorico, Giovanna Cavatorta, Pamela Pasian, and with Maura Misiti, of the Institute on Population and Social Politics, Italian Research Council. During the European Project Speak out!, consonances and the dissonances with Aino Saarineen, of the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, were very useful in recognizing in practice the plurality of feminisms involved in our common path of gender studies and women’s agency. I am greatly indebted to Alberta Basaglia, leader of the Italian Anti-Violence Movement. Our common involvement in many action-research projects and in responsibility for an antiviolence center was a continuous challenge to my attempts to separate theoretical and practical reasons. Laura Balbo and Luca Trappolin followed the writing of the chapter, relieving my doubts with their critical and pertinent comments. Gabriel Walton adopted her sensitive accuracy in revising the English style of the whole text.
Citation
Bimbi, F. (2014), "Symbolic violence: Reshaping post-patriarchal discourses on gender", Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence: Part B (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 18B), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 275-301. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-21262014000018B015
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited