Implicating animals: The symbolic power of scapegoating animals in marine pollution debates

Animals are often used as symbols in policy debates and media accounts of marine pollution. Images of miserable oil-soaked marine birds and mammals are prominent following high profile oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez, Prestige and Pacific Adventurer incidents. Portrayed as hapless victims, these animal actors are not only cast as powerful symbols of the effects of anthropogenic pollution but also represent an environment in crisis. Animals, like the broader environment, are seen as something which is acted upon. Less attention has been given to the ways in which animals have been cast as either the cause of marine pollution or as having the potential to actively mitigate the potential impacts of anthropogenic marine pollution. This article explores how animals are constructed with respect to vessel-sourced sewage pollution. Through a process of interpretive policy analysis, drawing on media reports and responses to an Australian regulatory review process this study found that, when defending the perceived right to pollute recreational boaters implicated animals such as dogs, fish, turtles, dolphins and seabirds in their pollution discourses. Scapegoating was an important rhetorical feature of claims-making strategies designed to avoid responsibility for changing sewage disposal practices.

Culture and Security: Symbolic Power and the Politics of International Security : The Reconstruction of Security in the Post-Cold War Era

Williams, Mike, Culture and Security: Symbolic Power and the Politics of International Security (Oxon: Routledge, 2007), pp.xii+172 RAE2008

External policy influence and higher education reform in Ethiopia : understanding symbolic power of the World Bank

Increasingly national policy processes are intersected with and affected by global policy actors and ideas. In aid-recipient countries such as Ethiopia, donors use financial and non-financial means to influence national policy decisions and directions. This paper is about the non-financial influence of the World Bank (WB) in the Ethiopian higher education policy reform. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power as a ‘thinking tool’, the paper aims to shed light on forms of symbolic capital that the Bank uses to generate a ‘misrecognisable’ form of power that regulates the HE policy process in Ethiopia. The findings show that the WB transforms its symbolic capital of recognition and legitimacy to establish a ‘shared misrecognition’ and thereby make its policy prescriptions implicit and hence acceptable to local policy agents. The Bank uses knowledge-based regulatory instruments to induce compliance to its neoliberal policy prescriptions. The paper therefore underscores the value of symbol power as an analytical framework to understand elusive but critical role of donors in policy processes of aid recipient countries.

Symbolic power, robotting, and surveilling

Symbolic power is discussed with reference to mathematics and formal languages. Two distinctions are crucial for establishing mechanical and formal perspectives: one between appearance and reality, and one between sense and reference. These distinctions include a nomination of what to consider primary and secondary. They establish the grammatical format of a mechanical and a formal world view. Such views become imposed on the domains addressed by means of mathematics and formal languages. Through such impositions symbolic power of mathematics becomes exercised. The idea that mathematics describes as it prioritises is discussed with reference to robotting and surveillance. In general, the symbolic power of mathematics and formal languages is summarised through the observations: that mathematics treats parts and properties as autonomous, that it dismembers what it addresses and destroys the organic unity around things, and that it simplifies things and reduces them to a single feature. But, whatever forms the symbolic power may take, it cannot be evaluated along a single good-bad axis.

Rethinking news media and local government: journalism, politics and symbolic power

This essay explores why the relationship between news media and local government has been of little interest in journalism studies, especially in the Australian context. We argue that the reasons are complex but can be traced to issues of symbolic recognition and legitimacy. An overview of local government and news media in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand grounds the discussion in journalism and democratic theory. We draw on Bourdieu’s tradition of field-based research and theories of media power to highlight the important role 19th-century newspapers played in the establishment of municipalities. We then argue that local government’s omission from the Australian Constitution relates to issues of legitimacy and recognition that are reflected in the wider field of power and perpetuated within journalism practice and scholarship. Finally, practitioner perspectives and contemporary research underline the need for critical engagement and inquiry that recognise the fundamental importance of news and politics closest to the people.

Hard Custom, Hard Dance : Social Organisation, (Un)Differentiation and Notions of Power in a Tabiteuean Community, Southern Kiribati

Hard Custom, Hard Dance: Social Organisation, (Un)Differentiation and Notions of Power in a Tabiteuean Community, Southern Kiribati is an ethnographic study of a village community. This work analyses social organisation on the island of Tabiteuea in the Micronesian state of Kiribati, examining the intertwining of hierarchical and egalitarian traits, meanwhile bringing a new perspective to scholarly discussions of social differentiation by introducing the concept of undifferentiation to describe non-hierarchical social forms and practices. Particular attention is paid to local ideas concerning symbolic power, abstractly understood as the potency for social reproduction, but also examined in one of its forms; authority understood as the right to speak. The workings of social differentiation and undifferentiation in the village are specifically studied in two contexts connected by local notions of power: the meetinghouse institution (te maneaba) and traditional dancing (te mwaie). This dissertation is based on 11 months of anthropological fieldwork in 1999‒2000 in Kiribati and Fiji, with an emphasis on participant observation and the collection of oral tradition (narratives and songs). The questions are approached through three distinct but interrelated topics: (i) A key narrative of the community ‒ the story of an ancestor without descendants ‒ is presented and discussed, along with other narratives. (ii) The Kiribati meetinghouse institution, te maneaba, is considered in terms of oral tradition as well as present-day practices and customs. (iii) Kiribati dancing (te mwaie) is examined through a discussion of competing dance groups, followed by an extended case study of four dance events. In the course of this work the community of close to four hundred inhabitants is depicted as constructed primarily of clans and households, but also of churches, work co-operatives and dance groups, but also as a significant and valued social unit in itself, and a part of the wider island district. In these partly cross-cutting and overlapping social matrices, people are alternatingly organised by the distinct values and logic of differentiation and undifferentiation. At different levels of social integration and in different modes of social and discursive practice, there are heightened moments of differentiation, followed by active undifferentiation. The central notions concerning power and authority to emerge are, firstly, that in order to be valued and utilised, power needs to be controlled. Secondly, power is not allowed to centralize in the hands of one person or group for any long period of time. Thirdly, out of the permanent reach of people, power/authority is always, on the one hand, left outside the factual community and, on the other, vested in community, the social whole. Several forms of differentiation and undifferentiation emerge, but these appear to be systematically related. Social differentiation building on typically Austronesian complementary differences (such as male:female, elder:younger, autochtonous:allotochtonous) is valued, even if eventually restricted, whereas differentiation based on non-complementary differences (such as monetary wealth or level of education) is generally resisted, and/or is subsumed by the complementary distinctions. The concomitant forms of undifferentiation are likewise hierarchically organised. On the level of the society as a whole, undifferentiation means circumscribing and ultimately withholding social hierarchy. Potential hierarchy is both based on a combination of valued complementary differences between social groups and individuals, but also limited by virtue of the undoing of these differences; for example, in the dissolution of seniority (elder-younger) and gender (male-female) into sameness. Like the suspension of hierarchy, undifferentiation as transformation requires the recognition of pre-existing difference and does not mean devaluing the difference. This form of undifferentiation is ultimately encompassed by the first one, as the processes of the differentiation, whether transformed or not, are always halted. Finally, undifferentiation can mean the prevention of non-complementary differences between social groups or individuals. This form of undifferentiation, like the differentiation it works on, takes place on a lower level of societal ideology, as both the differences and their prevention are always encompassed by the complementary differences and their undoing. It is concluded that Southern Kiribati society be seen as a combination of a severely limited and decentralised hierarchy (differentiation) and of a tightly conditional and contextual (intra-category) equality (undifferentiation), and that it is distinctly characterised by an enduring tension between these contradicting social forms and cultural notions. With reference to the local notion of hardness used to characterise custom on this particular island as well as dance in general, it is argued in this work that in this Tabiteuean community some forms of differentiation are valued though strictly delimited or even undone, whereas other forms of differentiation are a perceived as a threat to community, necessitating pre-emptive imposition of undifferentiation. Power, though sought after and displayed - particularly in dancing - must always remain controlled.

Making sense of a transnational merger: Media texts and the (re)construction of power relations

In this study of symbolic power relations in a transnational merger, we suggest that the popular media can provide a significant arena for (re)constructing national identities and power in this kind of dramatic industrial restructuring, and are an under-utilized source of empirical data in research studies. Focusing on the press coverage of a recent Swedish-Finnish merger, we specify and illustrate a particular feature of discursive (re)construction of asymmetric power relations; superior (Swedish) and inferior (Finnish) national identities, which, we argue, are embedded in the history of colonization and domination between the two nations. The findings of the present study lead us to suggest that a lens taken from post-colonial theory is particularly useful in understanding the wider symbolic power implications of international industrial restructuring.

Shifting foundations: journalism and the power of the 'common good'

This essay rethinks the relationship between news media and the universal notion of the ‘common good’ as a key foundational concept for journalism studies. It challenges dominant liberal democratic theories of the press linked to the idea of the ‘public good’ to offer a new way of conceptualizing news media’s relationship to civic life that incorporates power and legitimacy in the changing media world. In doing so, it argues current understandings of journalism’s relationship to the common good also require some re-alignment. The essay draws on Pierre Bourdieu to contend the common good can be understood as a global doxa – an unquestionable orthodoxy that operates as if it were objective truth – across wider social space. How this is carried out in practice depends on the specific context in which it is understood. It positions the common good in relation to news media’s symbolic power to construct reality and argues certain elites generate and reinforce their legitimacy by being perceived as central to negotiating understandings of the common good with links to culture, community and shared values.

Valtion taiteilijatuki taiteilijan määrittelijänä : Määrittelyvallan ehtoja ja ulottuvuuksia pohjoismaisen tukimallin suomalaisessa muunnelmassa

The dissertation studies state support for artists in the context of the societal process of producing definitions of the artist. It examines the dimensions of and conditions for the power of definition inherent in the Nordic model of artists' support. The dissertation consists of a summary in Finnish and five articles published in English. The theoretical framework is based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the fields of cultural production and the concept of artistic classification systems introduced by Paul DiMaggio. The framework also makes use of the analyses by Per Mangset and Dag Solhjell of the relationship between Norwegian artistic fields and the state policy of supporting art. The study assumes that an examination of the formulation and content of the policy of support is insufficient, and extends the analysis to the implementation of the policy both at the level of the structures of decision making and at the level of actual decisions and their impacts. The analysis of the economic dimension of the definition power of artists' support uses register-based data on artists' financial situation. Survey data is used in studying the attitudes of Finnish artists toward state support for artists. The analysis of the Nordic policy of supporting artists uses data based on documents and interviews concerning the formulation and implementation of the policy in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The cross-country comparison contributes to identifying the specific features of the Finnish policy of supporting artists from the point of view of its potential power of definition. The study concludes that the legitimating arguments, goals and means of the policy of supporting artists, as well as the structures and actions of the bodies implementing the policy, have an impact on the formulation of definitions of the artist. For example, a relevant factor in this context seems to be the way in which the relationship between various fields of art and the system of support is organized. According to the comparative analysis, the greater the correspondence between the administrative structures of decision making and the organizational structure of artistic fields, the greater the resistance to change regarding the artistic categories produced. By contrast, those structures of decision making which require negotiations and compromises between various interests have produced artistic categories that have been more inclined to change. The development of the Finnish system of artists' support over the past few decades can be described as a slow expansion towards new areas of art. However, the demarcations and hierarchies between various fields of art have not lost their significance, and state support for artists still concentrates on the same areas as it did when the policy of supporting artists was established. State support always contains an element of power. According to the study, the Nordic policy of supporting artists has both the material and symbolic power to participate in the production of societal definitions of the artist. The legitimating arguments, goals and means of the Finnish artists' support, as well as the criteria for granting it, strengthen the symbolic dimension of this power also in terms of the symbolic capital valued by the artistic fields. In this sense, it can be said that the state is one of the actors in the Finnish fields of art. The symbolic dimension of the definition power of artists' support is, however, in the last instance derived from the artistic fields, and reinforces on its part the definition power of these fields.

The accounting and accountability practices of Fairtrade International (FLO)

This study examines the accounting and accountability practices of Fairtrade International (FLO), one of the largest Fair Trade umbrella organizations. Our aim is to explore whether new forms of accounting and related disclosures emerge in the reporting practices of FLO and how these reflect their self-declared social mission towards the emancipation and sustainability of producers. Using thematic analysis and reflecting on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power, we analyse FLO’s reporting practices from 2006 to 2013. Our findings reveal that FLO mobilises the taken-for-granted images and symbols of ’fairness’ in the Fair Trade system by using descriptive statistics of Fair Trade premium distributions and pictures of producers but keeps silent to current concerns surrounding the limitations of Fair Trade. Such findings extend important insights into how new forms of accounting and related disclosure are used to legitimise the practice of Fair Trade.

A luta das enfermeiras por um espaço na FAB: a turma pioneira de oficiais (1981-1984)

Este estudo, de cunho histórico-social, tem como objeto a inserção de enfermeiras como oficiais da Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB) por meio do pioneiro Quadro Feminino de Oficiais (QFO). O marco inicial do estudo refere-se ao início do Estágio de Adaptação militar, em 02 de agosto de 1982 no Centro de Instrução Especializada da Aeronáutica (CIEAR), localizado na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. O marco final do estudo diz respeito ao término do período inicial obrigatório de dois anos de cumprimento de serviço ativo dessas enfermeiras, que culminou com a promoção das mesmas ao posto de 1Tenente (1984). Os objetivos do estudo são: descrever as circunstâncias de inserção das enfermeiras no processo seletivo do QFO, analisar o processo de incorporação do habitus militar durante o Estágio de Adaptação, e discutir as estratégias de luta das enfermeiras militares para ocuparem seus lugares devidos nos hospitais da FAB. A técnica de coleta de dados utilizada foi a entrevista e ocorreu no período de abril a maio de 2009 em hospitais da FAB da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Foram entrevistadas cinco enfermeiras militares da primeira turma do QFO. O estudo foi cadastrado no SISNEP e aprovado pelo Comitê de Ética da FAB. Todos os sujeitos assinaram o Termo de consentimento livre e esclarecido e o Termo de doação de depoimento oral. O método utilizado foi o da História oral temática o referencial teórico do estudo foi baseado no pensamento do sociólogo francês Pierre Bourdieu, cujos conceitos de poder simbólico, habitus, campo, espaço social e violência simbólica sustentaram a construção desta dissertação. Para a análise e interpretação dos dados, seguimos os passos propostos por Maria Cecília Minayo de ordenação de dados, que compreendeu a transcrição na íntegra dos depoimentos; classificação cronológica e temática dos documentos escritos; classificação dos dados e a análise final. Evidenciou-se que diversos motivos incentivaram as enfermeiras a almejarem sua inserção na FAB como a boa remuneração, estabilidade financeira, progressão profissional, desbravamento de um novo campo de trabalho, clientela diferenciada, aposentadoria com salário integral e pioneirismo na FAB. O objetivo do Estágio de Adaptação militar foi inculcar do habitus militar nas candidatas a partir de ensinamentos baseados na hierarquia, disciplina, ética, dever e compromisso militar. Ao se inserirem nos hospitais da FAB, as enfermeiras receberam diversos cargos e funções, galgando um poder simbólico sobre a equipe de enfermagem. As inevitáveis lutas simbólicas dessas enfermeiras ocorreram com os médicos militares, com a equipe de enfermagem, com as enfermeiras civis e com a própria administração do hospital, e revelaram aspectos característicos de violência simbólica desencadeada por lutas de gênero e pela manutenção do poder, visto que as enfermeiras, dotadas de status de chefe e de militar, se inseriram num campo eminentemente masculino.

A influência do habitus da enfermeira nas representações das mulheres acerca do parto: o surgimento de uma nova demanda social para o campo obstétrico

O presente estudo tem como objeto as representações mentais de mulheres produzidas pelas enfermeiras obstétricas na assistência ao parto. Os objetivos foram: Discutir as representações mentais das mulheres assistidas pelas enfermeiras sobre o parto e a prática obstétrica; Discutir o habitus da enfermeira obstétrica percebido pela mulher e Analisar as relações de poder simbólico entre os agentes envolvidos no processo de parturição. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa que utilizou a história oral temática e o teste de associação de palavras como técnicas de coleta de dados. Para a análise do material, utilizamos o método da análise de conteúdo de Bardin. A fim de dar sustentação teórica ao estudo, adotamos os conceitos de: campo, capitais, habitus, poder simbólico, trocas linguísticas, identidade e representações mentais, desenvolvidos por Pierre Bourdieu. Os resultados encontrados foram agrupados em duas categorias: As representações mentais das mulheres sobre o parto e a prática obstétrica: as percepções construídas e desconstruídas com o processo de parturição e O habitus da enfermeira obstétrica percebido pelas mulheres durante o processo de parturição: o poder simbólico destas agentes na construção de uma nova demanda social para o campo obstétrico. A primeira categoria apresentou as representações construídas pela socialização e as transformações das representações mentais das mulheres consequente à interação com a enfermeira no campo obstétrico. Neste sentido, as percepções das mulheres sobre o parto e a prática obstétrica confirmaram a forte influência do modelo tecnocrático nos depoimentos. Além disso, a prática humanizada da enfermeira contribuiu para a construção de uma nova visão de mundo nas mulheres pesquisadas que provocou um confronto entre suas representações mentais. A segunda categoria desvelou a identidade da enfermeira obstétrica percebida pelas mulheres através dos atributos profissionais e dos sinais distintivos que resultaram na associação de estereótipos a estas agentes. Ainda revelou que a manifestação do poder simbólico da enfermeira obstétrica foi percebido de diversas formas: pelo efeito de mobilização na mulher, em associação com as tecnologias de cuidado e através do fortalecimento da mulher para o parto. Concluímos que no contato com a mulher, a enfermeira exerceu um poder simbólico por estar em melhores posições no campo obstétrico. Tal fato, para as mulheres, resultou em transformações das suas representações mentais em relação ao processo de parturição, o que contribuiu para a construção de uma nova demanda para o campo obstétrico. Por outro lado, a enfermeira obstétrica, ao ser reconhecida pelas usuárias estudadas, fortaleceu a posição de sua prática no campo.

Marcas Identitárias: presença italiana no sertão da Bahia (1878-1910)

A tese Marcas Identitárias - presença italiana no sertão da Bahia, insere-se na Linha de Pesquisa Cultura Política do Programa de História Política da UERJ. O tema se define em torno do poder simbólico, práticas culturais e representações, além do confronto de imaginários. A problemática analisada aborda questões vinculadas à imigração italiana no sudoeste da Bahia, em Jequié, no periodo de 1878 a 1910. A presença desses europeus no sertão baiano despertou a atenção para o estudo de um fenômeno histórico pouco explorado pelos estudiosos em imigração, orientados em sua maioria para a imigração no sul do país. A tese destaca questões pontuais sobre as alterações devido à introdução de novas formas identitárias que se confrontaram naquela região sertaneja. Os procedimentos teórico-metodológicos se referem à História Cultural. A análise da questão fundamentou-se em fontes primárias coletadas nos Arquivos de Salvador e de Jequié, além de documentos particulares dos descendentes dos imigrantes italianos residentes naquele Município.

Igreja e poder no Brasil entre 1970 e 1990

Inserida na linha de pesquisa Política e Cultura, esta tese entende a Religião como um poder simbólico e como um fenômeno que penetrando a política e a cultura de um povo, de uma nação, estabelece valores, interfere na elaboração das normas jurídicas, estabelece e resignifica os costumes e as tradições. Através de vasta documentação afirmamos que a Igreja Católica no Brasil se manteve ligada ao Estado e interferiu na vida política e cultural do país até os anos de 1970. Neste período a Igreja manteve uma postura de combate ao socialismo e às esquerdas que se manteve posteriormente, porém, a Teologia da Libertação se desenvolveu tomando os conceitos marxistas e as Ciências Políticas como fundamento para suas análises. A ruptura das relações entre a Igreja e o Estado no Brasil nos anos de 1970 e o desenvolvimento da Teologia da Libertação são analisados a partir do pensamento de Antonio Gramsci, considerando a Igreja Sociedade Civil. O rompimento da hegemonia da Igreja Católica em relação ao Estado efetivou a organização das pastorais e movimentos de base em busca do estabelecimento de uma nova ordem política e assim o estabelecimento de uma nova hegemonia da Igreja no Brasil dos anos de 1990.