Pierre Bourdieu: A Sociological Analysis

Of course, in a literal sense, the indigenous Mexicans were dirtier than their Mestizo counterparts simply because they worked picking strawberries bent over the dirt, as opposed to the Mestizos, who worked on raspberry machines or walking through the fields as crew bosses. I never saw or heard of any disrespectful actions on the part of indigenous workers. However, the language barrier made this difficult to know. Shelly did not speak any Triqui or Mixteco and spoke poor Spanish, while the Oaxacan pickers did not speak English and many of them did not speak fluent Spanish. The idea that the Oaxacans were less work-oriented was directly contradicted by some of the crew bosses of Triqui pickers, who explain that the latter were displacing and Mixtec pickers on the farm because they worked so hard and fast. (Holmes 67.) The violence of migrant farm work.
This ethnography endeavors to uncover the linkage among suffering social inequalities related to structural violence, and the normalizing symbolic violence of stereotypes and prejudices. It attempts to do this, while telling the …show more content…
For Bourdieu, the lense to which we perceive the social word are issued forth from that very world. Because of this, our lenses of perceptions match the social world from which they are produced. Thus, we come to recognized the social structures and inequalities. Inherent to the world as natural. Symbolic violence works through the perception of the “dominating” and the “dominated”. (In Bourdieu‘s words) while it tends to benefit those with more power. Each group understands not only itself but also the other to belong naturally in their positions in the social hierarchy. For example the powerful tend to believe they deserve the successes they have had and that the powerless have brought their problems on themselves. (Holmes