'hegemony' is when people in power or the dominant groups attempt to exercise that power and authority, which they have over subordinate, disadvantaged or minority groups in society by means of consensus or negotiation which is needed. 

'counter hegemony' uses the myths and symbols of the dominant group via establishing trust from the masses. therefore, ideas are created through its own interpretation and concept of ideology and is therefore linked to the notion of the so called lesser social group- be it gays and lesbians, ethnic minorities, women- struggling for control 

if you want to know more then i'd suggest reading antonio gramsci. he is regarded by many as the originator of the terms 'hegemony' and 'cultural hegemony'Source(s):studied gramsci before

Gramsci and hegemony

The idea of a ‘third faceof power’, or ‘invisible power’ has its rootspartly, in Marxist thinking about thepervasive power of ideology, values andbeliefs in reproducing class relations andconcealing contradictions (Heywood, 1994:100).  Marx recognised that economic

exploitation was not the only driver behindcapitalism, and that the system wasreinforced by a dominance of ruling classideas and values – leading to Engels’s famousconcern that ‘false consciousness’ would keepthe working class from recognising andrejecting their oppression (Heywood, 1994:85).False consciousness, in relation to invisible power,is itself a ‘theory of power’ in the Marxisttradition. It is particularly evident in thethinking of Lenin, who ‘argued that the powerof ‘bourgeois ideology’ was such that, leftto its own devices, the proletariat wouldonly be able to achieve ‘trade unionconsciousness’, the desire to improve theirmaterial conditions but within the capitalistsystem’ (Heywood 1994: 85). A famous analogyis made to workers accepting crumbs that falloff the table (or indeed are handed out tokeep them quiet) rather than claiming arightful place at the table.The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci,imprisoned for much of his life by Mussolini,took these idea further in his PrisonNotebooks with his widely influential notionsof ‘hegemony’ and the ‘manufacture of

consent’ (Gramsci 1971).  Gramsci saw thecapitalist state as being made up of twooverlapping spheres, a ‘political society’(which rules through force) and a ‘civilsociety’ (which rules through consent). Thisis a different meaning of civil society fromthe ‘associational’ view common today, whichdefines civil society as a ‘sector’ ofvoluntary organisations and NGOs. Gramsci sawcivil society as the public sphere wheretrade unions and political parties gainedconcessions from the bourgeois state, and thesphere in which ideas and beliefs wereshaped, where bourgeois ‘hegemony’ wasreproduced in cultural life through themedia, universities and religiousinstitutions to ‘manufacture consent’ andlegitimacy (Heywood 1994: 100-101).

The political and practical implications ofGramsci’s ideas were far-reaching because hewarned of the limited possibilities of directrevolutionary struggle for control of themeans of production; this ‘war of attack’could only succeed with a prior ‘war ofposition’ in the form of struggle over ideasand beliefs, to create a new hegemony(Gramsci 1971).  This idea of a ‘counter-

hegemonic’ struggle – advancing alternativesto dominant ideas of what is normal andlegitimate – has had broad appeal in socialand political movements. It has alsocontributed to the idea that ‘knowledge’ is asocial construct that serves to legitimatesocial structures (Heywood 1994: 101).

In practical terms, Gramsci’s insights abouthow power is constituted in the realm ofideas and knowledge – expressed throughconsent rather than force – have inspired theuse of explicit strategies to contesthegemonic norms of legitimacy. Gramsci’sideas have influenced popular educationpractices, including the adult literacy andconsciousness-raising methods of Paulo Freirein his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), liberationtheology, methods of participatory actionresearch (PAR), and many approaches topopular media, communication and culturalaction.The idea of power as ‘hegemony’ has alsoinfluenced debates about civil society.Critics of the way civil society is narrowlyconceived in liberal democratic thought –reduced to an ‘associational’ domain incontrast to the state and market – have used

Gramsci’s definition to remind us that civilsociety can also be a public sphere ofpolitical struggle and contestation overideas and norms. The goal of ‘civil societystrengthening’ in development policy can thusbe pursued either in a neo-liberal sense ofbuilding civic institutions to complement (orhold to account) states and markets, or in aGramscian sense of building civic capacitiesto think differently, to challengeassumptions and norms, and to articulate newideas and visions.

Refernces for futher readingFreire, Paulo (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York,Herder & Herder.Gramsci, Antonio (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of

Antonio Gramsci, New York, International Publishers.Heywood, Andrew (1994) Political Ideas and Concepts: An

Introduction,London, Macmillan.

Hegemony and invisible power

Lukes’ ‘third face’ ofpower (‘invisible power’ in the powercube) is muchinspired by Gramsci’s ideas about ‘hegemony’and ‘manufacture of consent’ as the means bywhich the willing compliance of workers issecured in capitalist societies. But thereare differences in how Gramsci isinterpreted. In the second edition ofPower: A Radical

View (2005) Lukes contrasts two meanings ofhegemony: the first as an unconsciouspsychological process that is cultural andinternalised, and the second a moreconscious, wilful and coordinated strategy ofdomination. This distinction causes someconfusion and tensions about what ‘invisiblepower’ is: whether it is a form of structure,of agency or some interplay of both.Steven Lukes admits he is essentially ananalyst of ‘power over’ within a particular

debate about who wins and who loses inpolitical decision making, and why. In the‘third dimension’ of power he recognises bothways that hegemony operates, but his mainconcern is with deliberate and wilful intentof the powerful to manipulate the thoughtsand wants of the powerless. The ‘third face’of power remains, for Lukes’ particularpurposes, a form of agency and domination –power held and wielded by those who have itover those who don’t, albeit within normsthat uphold this conduct. Lukes did notintend to produce a comprehensive theory ofsocietal power, but this emphasis on agencyand will has been the source of muchcriticism by those looking for a morecomprehensive theory.

John Gaventa takes ‘invisible power’ somewhatfurther than Lukes with the idea of ‘a thirdform of power, in which conflict is moreinvisible, through internalisation ofpowerlessness, or through dominatingideologies, values and forms of behaviour’(2006). In the powercube, ‘invisible power’ need notbe limited to intentional acts of ‘thoughtcontrol’ by the powerful, but can also beseen as self-reproducing social processes in

which the thinking and behaviour of thepowerful and powerless alike are conditionedby pervasive norms. ‘Invisible power’ in thepowercube can therefore embrace both meaningsof hegemony – its structure and agency – andpoints to the need for appropriate strategiesfor engaging with both forms of invisible orinternalised power.This third face of power is likewise treatedby VeneKlasen and Miller (2002) as amultidimensional barrier to effective citizenparticipation, requiring well-designedtactics for building self-awareness, self-esteem and ‘power within’ to challengedominant norms such as gender and racialdiscrimination. Their practical methods aregrounded in experiences of women’s organisingand empowerment, and recognises the directlinks between gendered norms in society andthe fragile condition of women’s ‘powerwithin’. Invisible power in this sensebridges agency and structure.

References for further readingGaventa, John (2006) ‘Finding the spaces forchange; a power analysis’, IDS Bulletin37(5): 23-33.

Lukes, Stephen (2005) Power: A Radical View, London,Mcmillian (first published in 1974).VeneKlasen, Lisa and Miller, Valerie (2002) A

New Weave of Power, People and Politics: The Action Guide for Advocacy and Citizen

Participation,Oklahoma City, World Neighbors.

Scott: resistance

James C. Scott providesanother perspective on hegemony and‘invisible power’ that has been bothinfluential and controversial. In isinfluential book Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of resistance (1985)Scott introduces the idea that oppression andresistance are in constant flux, and that byfocusing (as political scientists often do)on visible historic ‘events’ such asorganised rebellions or collective action wecan easily miss subtle but powerful forms of‘every day resistance’. Scott looks atpeasant and slave societies and their ways of

responding to domination, with a focus not onobservable acts of rebellion but on forms ofcultural resistance and non-cooperation thatare employed over time through the course ofpersistent servitude.Scott’s research finds that overt peasantrebellions are actually rather uncommon, donot occur when and where expected, and oftendon’t have much impact.  Rather than seeing‘resistance as organisation’, Scott looks atless visible, every-day forms of resistancesuch as ‘foot-dragging, evasion, falsecompliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance,slander and sabotage’.  He finds these inrural and factory settings, and also amongthe middle class and elites (e.g. through taxevasion or conscription), but particularlyamong rural people who are physicallydispersed and less politically organised thanurban populations (Scott 1985).

Closely linked to the idea of resistance isScott’s notion of ‘transcripts’ (hidden andpublic) which are established ways ofbehaving and speaking that fit particularactors in particular social settings, whetherdominant or oppressed.  Resistance is asubtle form of contesting ‘public

transcripts’ by making use of prescribedroles and language to resist the abuse ofpower – including things like ‘rumour,gossip, disguises, linguistic tricks,metaphors, euphemisms, folktales, ritualgestures, anonymity’ (page 137). Thesemethods are particularly effective insituations where violence is used to maintainthe status quo, allowing ‘a veiled discourseof dignity and self-assertion within thepublic transcript… in which ideologicalresistance is disguised, muted and veiled forsafety’s sake’ (page 137).  These forms ofresistance require little coordination orplanning, and are used by both individualsand groups to resist without directlyconfronting or challenging elite norms.

Importantly, with his idea of ‘transcripts’Scott recognises that the dominant as well asthe weak are often caught within the same webof socialised roles and behaviour (Scott1992) often expressed without  any explicitor conscious intent. In this sense Scott hasa cultural/psychological view of hegemony assubconscious and internalised (throughtranscripts) rather than as wilful,coordinated acts of domination. But with

‘resistance’ he sees power as lying somewherebetween structure and agency:

‘Most of the political life of subordinategroups is to be found neither in the overtcollective defiance of powerholders nor incomplete hegemonic compliance, but in thevast territory between these two polaropposites’ (Scott 1985: 136).

There are clear connections betweenresistance and the ideasof hidden andinvisible power. Just as hidden formsof power can be used by powerful actors tokeep certain issues and voices off of theagenda, similarly relatively powerless groupscan employ strategies of resistance which‘hide’ their actions from the powerful, orwhich use codes to make them invisible. Anexample may be found in the rich history ofAfrican-American spirituals, which weresometimes used in the times of slavery ascodes for communication, disguising hiddenmessages from the workers under the guise ofsinging a hymn (John Gaventa, pers. comm.).Also, read about resistance as hidden power amdinvisible power

and false consciousness.

References for further readingScott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of

resistance. New Haven and London, Yale UniversityPress.Scott, J. C. (1992). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden

Transcripts. New Haven and London, Yale UniversityPress.

Hayward: ‘De-facing Power’

For some thinkers about power the‘three faces’ are unhelpful, either becausepower is ultimately assumed to be held byactors, or because the agency/structuredivide is itself seen as misleading in trying

to understand power. Clarissa Hayward (1998),writing about power in the public educationsystem in the United States, offers acritique of Lukes in which she argues for‘de-facing power’ – questioning the idea thatpower in an instrument used by the powerfulto limit the freedom of the powerless. Thisview diverts attention, she argues, from theways in which we are all socialised into ouridentities, choices and actions, determiningthe limits we experience to our freedom.Drawing on Foucault’s ideas, for Hayward‘Power’s mechanisms are best conceived, notas instruments powerful agents use to preventthe powerless from acting freely, but ratheras social boundaries that, together, definefields of action for all actors. Powerdefines fields of possibility. It facilitatesand constrains social action. Its mechanismsconsist in laws, rules, norms, customs,social identities, and standards thatconstrain and enable inter- and intra-subjective action… Freedom enables actors toparticipate effectively in shaping theboundaries that define for them the field ofwhat is possible’ (1998: 12)

Rather than worrying about who has or doesnot have power, Hayward proposes that wefocus on ‘whether the social boundariesdefining key practices and institutionsproduce entrenched differences in the fieldof what is possible’ (1998: 20). She arguesfor critical examination not of actors andtheir actions, but of the unquestioned socialnorms which underpin possibilities foraction. But she does not dismiss agency: tochallenge power involves taking action toshift the boundaries of what is consideredpossible.

In her most specific challenge of the ‘threefaces’, Hayward questions the idea that poweris necessarily ‘exercised’ in an exchangebetween two actors or groups (1998: 16). Incontrast, she finds that ‘the field of whatis socially possible can be shaped at adistance’ by events and historical trendsthat are not explicitly intended to affect agiven group (1998: 18). She gives the exampleof urban African-Americans workersmarginalised ‘at a distance’ by an earliergeneration of industrial decision-makers andan historical legacy of discrimination. Theabsence of a connection or interaction is

also a form of power’s exercise; so‘analysing and criticizing power relationsrequires looking beyond the distribution ofpolitical resources and their intended use ininteraction’ (1998: 18).

One reason many of us tend to accept the ideaof the deliberate exercise of power ‘with aface’, according to Hayward, is that itallows us to assume that the powerful areacting on the basis of their free andconscious choice to dominate others, givingus a kind of ‘moral closure’ and someone to‘point a finger at’ (1998: 14). But this alsoprevents us from noticing how powerfulpeople’s actions are just as sociallyconditioned as those of the powerless.Drawing on Foucault, she is hesitant to drawa line between agency and structure, becauseultimately all actions and structures are insome way conditioned by socialized norms,identities and knowledge.

At the same time, Hayward is clear that shemaintains ‘a belief in both the possibilityof human agency and the value of relativeautonomy’, and does not disagree normativelywith Lukes or other proponents of power as

agency. However, she believes that a morestrategic understanding of power is needed inorder to focus on shifting the underlyingsocial constraints to freedom, and onidentifying people’s differential abilitiesto affect these constraints (1998: 20).Action on power relations is directed atcapacities to affect the boundaries, ratherthan at the behaviour of actors:

‘Freedom… is the capacity to participateeffectively in shaping the social limits thatdefine what is possible… Critical questionsabout how power shapes freedom are not, thenreducible to questions about distribution andindividual choice. Rather, they are questionsabout the differential impact of sociallimits to human action on people’s capacitiesto participate in directing their lives andin shaping the conditions of their collectiveexistence’ (1998: 22).

The practical and political implications ofthis critique are for a shift in focus alonga possible ‘spectrum’ of power, moving awayfrom overt forms of domination and toward therelative capacity for action on the norms andboundaries that make this possible. In

relation to the powercube, the implicationsare (a) to downplay the first two ‘forms ofpower’; (b) to analyse those instances ofinvisible power that are more unconscious andinternalized by social norms (rather thanintentional); and (c) to pursue strategiesthat enable people to better recognise andchallenge these boundaries.

There is an interesting synergy here with thePower Spectrum, a framework we adapted fromthe powercube to highlight and question thetendency of some NGO initiatives to over-emphasise action on intentional forms of‘power over’ and domination, and to missimportant opportunities to strengthenpeople’s capacities to question and challengeinternalised and socialised norms. 

Hayward’s critique draws heavily on theconcepts of power put forward by Foucault,who saw domination as ‘only one form of powerrelation’ – defined mainly by the limitedroom for manoeuvre to change that powerrelation (Hayward 1998:21) – and this kind ofdomination can only occur against a broaderreality in which power is pervasive or‘ubiquitous’.

References for further readingHayward, Clarissa Rile (1998) De-Facing Power, Polity31(1).Hayward, Clarissa Rile (2000) De-facing Power,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Foucault: power is everywhere

Michel Foucault, the Frenchpostmodernist, has been hugely influential inshaping understandings of power, leading awayfrom the analysis of actors who use power asan instrument of coercion, and even away fromthe discreet structures in which those actorsoperate, toward the idea that ‘power iseverywhere’, diffused and embodied indiscourse, knowledge and ‘regimes of truth’(Foucault 1991; Rabinow 1991). Power forFoucault is what makes us what we are,

operating on a quite different level fromother theories:‘His work marks a radical departure fromprevious modes of conceiving power and cannotbe easily integrated with previous ideas, aspower is diffuse rather than concentrated,embodied and enacted rather than possessed,discursive rather than purely coercive, andconstitutes agents rather than being deployedby them’ (Gaventa 2003: 1)

Foucault challenges the idea that power iswielded by people or groups by way of‘episodic’ or ‘sovereign’ acts of dominationor coercion, seeing it instead as dispersedand pervasive. ‘Power is everywhere’ and‘comes from everywhere’ so in this sense isneither an agency nor a structure (Foucault1998: 63). Instead it is a kind of‘metapower’ or ‘regime of truth’ thatpervades society, and which is in constantflux and negotiation. Foucault uses the term‘power/knowledge’ to signify that power isconstituted through accepted forms ofknowledge, scientific understanding and‘truth’:

‘Truth is a thing of this world: it isproduced only by virtue of multiple forms ofconstraint.  And it induces regular effectsof power.  Each society has its regime oftruth, its “general politics” of truth: thatis, the types of discourse which it acceptsand makes function as true; the mechanismsand instances which enable one to distinguishtrue and false statements, the means by whicheach is sanctioned; the techniques andprocedures accorded value in the acquisitionof truth; the status of those who are chargedwith saying what counts as true’ (Foucault,in Rabinow 1991).

These ‘general politics’ and ‘regimes oftruth’ are the result of scientific discourseand institutions, and are reinforced (andredefined) constantly through the educationsystem, the media, and the flux of politicaland economic ideologies. In this sense, the‘battle for truth’ is not for some absolutetruth that can be discovered and accepted,but is a battle about ‘the rules according towhich the true and false are separated andspecific effects of power are attached to thetrue’… a battle about ‘the status of truthand the economic and political role it

plays’(Foucault, in Rabinow 1991). This isthe inspiration for Hayward’s focus on poweras boundaries that enable and constrainpossibilities for action, and on people’srelative capacities to know and shape theseboundaries (Hayward 1998).

Foucault is one of the few writers on powerwho recognise that power is not just anegative, coercive or repressive thing thatforces us to do things against our wishes,but can also be a necessary, productive andpositive force in society (Gaventa 2003: 2):

‘We must cease once and for all to describethe effects of power in negative terms: it‘excludes’, it ‘represses’, it ‘censors’, it‘abstracts’, it ‘masks’, it ‘conceals’.  Infact power produces; it produces reality; itproduces domains of objects and rituals oftruth.  The individual and the knowledge thatmay be gained of him belong to thisproduction’ (Foucault 1991: 194).

Power is also a major source of socialdiscipline and conformity. In shiftingattention away from the ‘sovereign’ and‘episodic’ exercise of power, traditionally

centred in feudal states to coerce theirsubjects, Foucault pointed to a new kind of‘disciplinary power’ that could be observedin the administrative systems and socialservices that were created in 18th centuryEurope, such as prisons, schools and mentalhospitals. Their systems of surveillance andassessment no longer required force orviolence, as people learned to disciplinethemselves and behave in expected ways.

Foucault was fascinated by the mechanisms ofprison surveillance, school discipline,systems for the administration and control ofpopulations, and the promotion of norms aboutbodily conduct, including sex. He studiedpsychology, medicine and criminology andtheir roles as bodies of knowledge thatdefine norms of behaviour and deviance.Physical bodies are subjugated and made tobehave in certain ways, as a microcosm ofsocial control of the wider population,through what he called ‘bio-power’. Disciplinary and bio-power create a‘discursive practice’ or a body of knowledgeand behaviour that defines what is normal,acceptable, deviant, etc. – but it is a

discursive practice that is nonetheless inconstant flux (Foucault 1991).

A key point about Foucault’s approach topower is that it transcends politics and seespower as an everyday, socialised and embodiedphenomenon. This is why state-centric powerstruggles, including revolutions, do notalways lead to change in the social order.For some, Foucault’s concept of power is soelusive and removed from agency or structurethat there seems to be little scope forpractical action. But he has been hugelyinfluential in pointing to the ways thatnorms can be so embedded as to be beyond ourperception – causing us to disciplineourselves without any wilful coercion fromothers.

Contrary to many interpretations, Foucaultbelieved in possibilities for action andresistance. He was an active social andpolitical commentator who saw a role for the‘organic intellectual’. His ideas aboutaction were, like Hayward’s, concerned withour capacities to recognise and questionsocialised norms and constraints.  Tochallenge power is not a matter of seeking

some ‘absolute truth’ (which is in any case asocially produced power), but ‘of detachingthe power of truth from the forms ofhegemony, social, economic, and cultural,within which it operates at the present time’(Foucault, in Rabinow 1991: 75). Discoursecan be a site of both power and resistance,with scope to ‘evade, subvert or conteststrategies of power’ (Gaventa 2003: 3):

‘Discourses are not once and for allsubservient to power or raised up againstit…  We must make allowances for the complexand unstable process whereby a discourse canbe both an instrument and an effect of power,but also a hindrance, a stumbling point ofresistance and a starting point for anopposing strategy.  Discourse transmits andproduces power; it reinforces it, but alsoundermines and exposes it, renders it fragileand makes it possible to thwart’ (Foucault1998: 100-1).

The powercube is not easily compatible withFoucauldian understandings of power, butthere is scope for critical analysis andstrategic action at the level of challengingor shaping discourse – for example taking the

psychological/cultural meaning of ‘invisiblepower’ and ‘hegemony’ as a lens with which tolook at the whole. Foucault’s approach hasbeen widely used to critique developmentthinking and paradigms, and the ways in whichdevelopment discourses are imbued with power(Gaventa 2003, citing the work of Escobar,Castells and other ‘post-development’critics).

At a the level of practice, activists andpractitioners use methods of discourseanalysis to identify normative aid languagethat needs more careful scrutiny, and toshape alternative framings. An example of avery practical tool for doing this isincluded in the IIED Power Tools collection,called the ‘Writing Tool’, and in NGOworkshops we have used a simple method ofdiscourse analysis to examine missionstatements and programme aims.

Thanks to Jonathan Gaventa (2003) for hiscontributions to this section.

References for further readingFoucault, M. (1991). Discipline and Punish:the birth of a prison. London, Penguin.

Foucault, Michel (1998) The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge,London, Penguin.Gaventa, John (2003) Power after Lukes: a review of the literature,Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.Hayward, Clarissa Rile (1998) ‘De-FacingPower’, Polity 31(1).Rabinow, Paul (editor) (1991) The Foulcault Reader: An introduction

to Foulcault’s thought, London, Penguin.

Bourdieu and ‘Habitus’

The French sociologistPierre Bourdieu approaches power within thecontext of a comprehensive ‘theory ofsociety’ which – like that of Foucault – wecan’t possibly do justice to here, or easily

express in the form of applied methods(Navarro 2006). And although his subject wasmainly Algerian and French society, we havefound Bourdieu’s approach useful in analysingpower in development and social changeprocesses (see the articles by Navarro,Moncrieffe, Eyben and Taylor and Boser inEyben, Harris et. al. 2006; Navarro offers aparticularly solid introduction to Bourdieu’smethod).While Foucault sees power as ‘ubiquitous’ andbeyond agency or structure, Bourdieu seespower as culturally and symbolically created,and constantly re-legitimised through aninterplay of agency and structure. The mainway this happens is through what he calls‘habitus’ or socialised norms or tendenciesthat guide behaviour and thinking. Habitus is‘the way society becomes deposited in personsin the form of lasting dispositions, ortrained capacities and structuredpropensities to think, feel and act indeterminant ways, which then guide them’(Wacquant 2005: 316, cited in Navarro 2006:16).

Habitus is created through a social, ratherthan individual process leading to patterns

that are enduring and transferrable from onecontext to another, but that also shift inrelation to specific contexts and over time.Habitus ‘is not fixed or permanent, and canbe changed under unexpected situations orover a long historical period’ (Navarro 2006:16):

Habitus is neither a result of free will, nordetermined by structures, but created by akind of interplay between the two over time:dispositions that are both shaped by pastevents and structures, and that shape currentpractices and structures and also,importantly, that condition our veryperceptions of  these (Bourdieu 1984: 170).In this sense habitus is created andreproduced unconsciously, ‘without anydeliberate pursuit of coherence… without anyconscious concentration’ (ibid: 170).

A second important concept introduced byBourdieu is that of ‘capital’, which heextends beyond the notion of material assetsto capital that may be social, cultural orsymbolic (Bourdieu 1986: cited in Navarro2006: 16). These forms of capital may beequally important, and can be accumulated and

transferred from one arena to another(Navarro 2006: 17). Cultural capital – andthe means by which it is created ortransferred from other forms of capital –plays a central role in societal powerrelations, as this ‘provides the means for anon-economic form of domination andhierarchy, as classes distinguish themselvesthrough taste’ (Gaventa 2003: 6). The shiftfrom material to cultural and symbolic formsof capital is to a large extent what hidesthe causes of inequality.

These ideas are elaborated at length inBourdieu’s classic study of French society,Distinction (1986), in which he shows how the‘social order is progressively inscribed inpeople’s minds’ through ‘cultural products’including systems of education, language,judgements, values, methods of classificationand activities of everyday life (1986: 471).These all lead to an unconscious acceptanceof social differences and hierarchies, to ‘asense of one’s place’ and to behaviours ofself-exclusion (ibid: 141).

A third concept that is important inBourdieu’s theory is the idea of ‘fields’,

which are the various social andinstitutional arenas in which people expressand reproduce their dispositions, and wherethey compete for the distribution ofdifferent kinds of capital (Gaventa 2003: 6).A field is a network, structure or set ofrelationships which may be intellectual,religious, educational, cultural, etc.(Navarro 2006: 18). People often experiencepower differently depending which field theyare in at a given moment (Gaventa 2003: 6),so context and environment are key influenceson habitus:

‘Bourdieu (1980) accounts for the tensionsand contradictions that arise when peopleencounter and are challenged by differentcontexts. His theory can be used to explainhow people can resist power and domination inone [field] and express complicity inanother’ (Moncrieffe 2006: 37)

Fields help explain the differential power,for example, that women experience in publicor private, as Moncrieffe shows in herinterview with a Ugandan woman MP who haspublic authority but is submissive to herhusband when at home (2006: 37).  This has

been widely observed by feminist activistsand researchers, and is another way of sayingthat women and men are socialised to behavedifferently in ‘public, private and intimate’arenas of power (VeneKlasen and Miller 2002).See gender perspectives on power and a New Weave of Power chapter3 Power and Empowerment.A final important concept in Bourdieu’sunderstanding of power is that of ‘doxa’,which is the combination of both orthodox andheterodox norms and beliefs – the unstated,taken-for-granted assumptions or ‘commonsense’ behind the distinctions we make. Doxahappens when we ‘forget the limits’ that havegiven rise to unequal divisions in society:it is ‘an adherence to relations of orderwhich, because they structure inseparablyboth the real world and the thought world,are accepted as self-evident’ (Bourdieu 1984:471).

Bourdieu also uses the term ‘misrecognition’,which is akin to Marxian ideas of  ‘falseconsciousness’ (Gaventa 2003: 6), but workingat a deeper level that transcends any intentat conscious manipulation by one group oranother. Unlike the Marxian view,‘misrecognition’ is more of a cultural than

an ideological phenomenon, because it‘embodies a set of active social processesthat anchor taken-for-granted assumptionsinto the realm of social life and, crucially,they are born in the midst of culture. Allforms of power require legitimacy and cultureis the battleground where this conformity isdisputed and eventually materialises amongstagents, thus creating social differences andunequal structures’ (Navarro 2006: 19).

While much of this may sound abstract,Bourdieu’s theories are firmly grounded in awide body of sociological research, andacross a range of social issues. Part of hisappeal, in fact, is that his research is soprolific and empirically documented. Anotherappeal of Bourdieu for politically committedresearchers is that he sees sociologicalmethod as part of the process of change.Careful analysis can help to reveal the powerrelations that have been rendered invisibleby habitus and misrecognition (Navarro 2006:19).

Bourdieu proposed a ‘reflexive sociology’– inwhich one recognises one’s biases, beliefsand assumptions in the act of sense-making –

long before reflexivity became fashionable. Self-critical knowledge that discloses the‘sources of power’ and  reveals ‘the reasonsthat explain social asymmetries andhierarchies’ can itself become ‘a powerfultool to enhance social emancipation’ (Navarro2006: 15-16).

The methods and terminology used by Bourdieuare distinct from those used in thepowercube, and suggest much more detailedsociological analysis of power relationsrooted in a comprehensive ‘theory ofsociety’. Yet the implications for appliedanalysis and action resonate very stronglywith the meanings of internalised, invisiblepower and ‘power within’, and with theimplicit ‘theory of change’ in the powercube,This is the idea that understanding power andpowerlessness, especially through processesof learning and analysis that exposeinvisible power, cat itself be an empoweringprocess.

References for further readingBourdieu, P. (1980). The Logic of Practice.Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A SocialCritique of the Judgement of Taste. London,Routledge.

Bourdieu, P. (1986). ‘The Forms of Capital’.Handbook of Theory and Research for theSociology of Capital. J. G. Richardson. NewYork, Greenwood Press: 241-58.

Gaventa, J. (2003). Power after Lukes: areview of the literature, Brighton: Instituteof Development Studies.

Moncrieffe, J. (2006). “The Power of Stigma:Encounters with ‘Street Children’ and‘Restavecs’ in Haiti.” IDS Bulletin 37(6):31-46.

Navarro, Z. (2006) ‘In Search of  CulturalIntepretation of Power’, IDS Bulletin 37(6):11-22.

VeneKlasen, L. and V. Miller (2002). A NewWeave of Power, People and Politics: TheAction Guide for Advocacy and CitizenParticipation. Oklahoma City, WorldNeighbors.

Wacquant, L. (2005) Habitus. InternationalEncyclopedia of Economic Sociology. J. Becketand Z. Milan. London, Routledge.