La violencia simbólica y la penalización de la protesta

Abstract

This article discusses the use of law and order discourses, agents and institutions in the management of the protest. Social movement studies literature on the police management of the protest and the effects this has on mobilization is reviewed to this end. Notions from the sociology of punishment are incorporated in order to argue for the pertinence of exploring these issues in terms of processes of penalization. A complex vision of punishment is used to question the widespread understanding that there is now less violence involved in protest management: I turn to symbolic violence, and spectators as interpreters of penalization to open new lines of inquiry. To illustrate the types of situation for which these conceptual shifts might productively be applied I refer to examples of mediated political discourse, police action and presence, and the modification and application of legal texts during the last wave of protest in Spain.