THEA 3331 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Symbolic Power, Theatricality, Documenta
Document Summary
Violence is a social reality that encompasses all forms of controlling processes that assault basic human freedoms and individual and collective survival. It should be understood as a historical and political economic process". Violence can be seen as a tool, but it can also be perceived as an arena of domination and subordination. It is an ensemble of practices and discourses that establish truth claims. Strong regimes are instrumental within a culture of fear. Are based on and nourished by silence and myth by means of rumour and fantasy woven in a dense web of magic realism (taussig 2004: 49) Sometimes symbolic violence becomes institutionalized and a part of the system. Fear is provided by the constant manipulation of facts. To understand violence as a representation of power, you can draw on performance power. The theatricality of violence allows us to perceive the mechanisms of power on an everyday level. It can also be seen as a methodology to research.
