Perception and symbolic violence

Traditionally, the study of the social perception of reality has been approached either from the standpoint of political demoscopy of how “public opinion” defines the most varied social problems, or from social psychology analyzing the mental processes which give rise to the perceived images of reality. But none of these perspectives takes into account how social relations of power affect social perception. The sociology of knowledge, with the centrality it gives to the relationship between social structure and points of view, can alleviate this explanatory inadequacy.