Ideology and the symbolic construction of political violence

Abstract

The argumentation I intend to develop in this paper aims to show that, being not a feature that belongs exclusively to totalitarian regimes, ideology represents an epistemic tool which may be used to discern the manner in which the construction of symbolic violence develops in any society – be it “open” or “closed”. Taking this aspect into account, the methodological hypothesis underlying my approach claims that if we accept an “integrated”, “positive” manner of defining ideology we will be able to notice the heuristic opportunity to make explicit the part played by the symbolic imaginary in the configuration of the social space and, starting from here, to highlight the fact that symbolic violence is a constitutive presence in the establishment of political relationships.

Keywords

• ideology
• political theory
• symbolic violence
• power
• domination
• social imaginary