Indigenous Culture and Symbolic Violence

This chapter is taken from a book on symbolic violence and was published in German. It concentrates on the writing of Pierre Bourdieu who recognised both the actual and the symbolic violence perpetrated by French colonial forces in Algeria and documented the suffering of indigenous Algerians. The chapter discusses how Bourdieu moved away from a dualistic representation of symbolic violence towards a recognition of multivariate factors operating in exchanges of power. It asserts that it is necessary for symbolic violence to be understood sociologically.

Citation:
Robbins, D. (2008) ‘Indigenous Culture and Symbolic Violence’ [Indigene Kultur und Symbolische Gewalt] in Schmidt, R., & Woltersdorff, V., (eds.) Symbolische Gewalt: Herrschaftsanalyse nach Pierre Bourdieu, Konstanz, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, pp. 59-74..