Preprint Formulation of a symbolic violence scale questionnaire ..., 2024, Gimeno Torrent

[Dolphin]

https://www.xaviergimeno.net/files/formulation_symbolic_violence_scale_6en.pdf


Title: Formulation of a symbolic violence scale questionnaire: the importance of the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological construction of the object of study

Author: Xavier Gimeno Torrent (https://www.xaviergimeno.net, https://twitter.com/Xavier_Gimeno)

Affiliation: Department of Sociology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Autonomous University of Barcelona) Correspondence to: xavier.gimeno@xaviergimeno.net

Funding details: This research is part of the project “The circuit of symbolic violence in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME): Development of a symbolic violence scale” which has not received or is receiving any public or private funding or crowdfunding in any of its stages for any purpose. The author also does not receive any funding or remuneration.

Disclosure statement:

No conflict of interest at all.

Acknowledgments: This research has been carried out within the framework of the Sociology PhD program of the Department of Sociology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Autonomous University of Barcelona). I would like to sincerely thank Rosa Matas Serra for her invaluable help with the revision of the English translation of the original version non-shortened of the symbolic violence scale questionnaire.

Abstract:

Objective:

The objective of this article is to develop a version 0 or preliminary of the symbolic violence scale in chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME). Given the general lack in the international panorama of measurement instruments that provide standardized and comparable information on the social circumstances surrounding these patients and this disease, obtaining such a scale is urgent.

Method:

For this purpose, first the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological foundations of what, based on Pierre Bourdieu’s approaches, have been considered to be a good scale questionnaire, are presented. Secondly, based on previously existing qualitative materials, the relevant quantitative analyses were carried out (analysis of co-occurrences of keywords, multidimensional Mahalanobis-Fisher-Wilks tests, and finally analysis of bivariate contingency tables) in order to isolate the most significant keywords, which, together with the review of the qualitative materials and in accordance with the 3 proposed construction principles, should serve as the basis for the questions of the scale questionnaire to generate the identification of the people surveyed with the questions.

Results:

In this way, a scale questionnaire was obtained consisting of 46 items with indirect questions of objective facts based on concrete examples extracted from the analyses carried out. The last step was to summarize the scale items with ChatGPT 3.5 Turbo.

Keywords: CFS/ME, epistemology, methodology, object of study, questionnaire, scale, symbolic violence, theory.

 

[Hutan]

Huh?
I haven't looked beyond the abstract, but perhaps it would have been good to have defined 'symbolic violence' in there somewhere?

 

[bobbler]

Huh?
I haven't looked beyond the abstract, but perhaps it would have been good to have defined 'symbolic violence' in there somewhere?

In the middle of para 2 of 1. objectives of the study, background-theoretical contextualization, and analytical model:

For the purposes of this research, symbolic violence is, to put it very briefly, a structural process from which the legitimate way of seeing and defining social reality is imposed, what is socially thinkable and unthinkable, that is, a common sense, and a cognitive advantage is given to what is established that is constituted as such (Bourdieu, 2001a:210-211). Regarding this research, one of the main consequences of this fact is that some patients and diseases are favored and others are relegated and made invisible. The main social structure that explains these effects is the existence of a hierarchy of diseases. In other researches, I have been able to verify how, among a list of 230 diseases in Western contexts, there is an extraordinarily stable ordering of diseases throughout the observed period 2008-2021

and just before this:

In fact, the present work is the continuation of the analyses carried out in that previous article with the aim of constructing a measurement instrument that allows obtaining generalizable and internationally comparable data on all the social aspects that affect CFS/ME, producing the invisibility of the disease and the relegation and social disintegration of the sick.

The topic of this article is the development of a symbolic violence scale questionnaire to study the specific case of what I have called the circuit of symbolic violence in chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME).

 

[bobbler]

The transcendence of this question, which derives from everything explained so far, will be seen more clearly from a concrete example, extracted from a real research. In 2021, the Barcelona health survey asked the following question:

“In the last year, have you experienced any type of discrimination because of...? You have felt upset, you have been denied something, you have been harassed or you have felt inferior…” (Bartoll-Roca et al., 2021:166).

The phenomenon that this question attempts to capture is fully circumscribed within the field of study of symbolic violence, but it does so without having the necessary epistemological, theoretical, and methodological tools.

the author then explained that when the results were analysed they weren't consistent with what was known about who/which demographic group actually gets the most discrimination...

What these results are revealing to us is that the younger the age (for men and women) and the higher the social class (only for women from affluent classes), the greater the degree of awareness of discrimination, which is not at all comparable to greater discriminations. In a question like this respondents express their degree of adherence to the values conveyed by the question, in this case, the fight against discrimination and inequalities

SO the author is picking up on the fact that the affluent young and women are the ones who are most able to 'call a spade a spade' and clearly feel confident in identifying and saying it when they get something , whereas perhaps other groups have just had it trained into them to accept and not even notice these things that take advantages piece-by-piece or train them into accepting that etc.

I'm hoping I've put that carefully enough (because the author seems to be so far pretty good at being precise in actually having methods - this isn't a 'manifesto' but is more interrogative of 'how can we investigate and demonstrate' by slowly layering out these things).

The objective of a well constructed structured questionnaire is precisely to “ask,” so both the role of respondent and interviewer and the possible distortions introduced by this relationship should be minimal, but the possibilities of capturing the full range of possible responses should be maximum and calculated to the millimeter. If this question had asked about specific cases and examples of discrimination extracted from a theoretically well-constructed in-depth research, such absurdities would not have been obtained and the percentages of discrimination would have decreased drastically.

 

[bobbler]

It can be a bit of a heavy read. But there is a chance there is something in here.

And the methodological points I've seen so far seem pretty useful in the context of ME/CFS given we all go through stages of just rising above things and 'hoping for the best' and so on. But also accepting that we are 'unreliable' to others rather than if we ever eventually get properly accepted as ME/CFS being behind that eg inability to 'plan' with great accuracy/guarantee being able to do 'x' on y day at z time and place etc. and having our 'reality' acknowledged.

It sounds like maybe there is an aim to come up with efforts to separate the self-discrimination out of the answers about what is actually happening to people /other behaviour towards them. ie stigma and other things.

Plus of course both of these aspects are important because getting people to internalise and self-discriminate (or whatever the polite term for self-bigot) is, can almost be a more damaging and 'further down the line' sign of the imposition of these 'micro-aggressions' in the first place. eg us getting the message that we are best not to show our face when we look awful, and don't bother the GP 'because they aren't going to do anything', hospitals are going to be unsafe for you etc. Is the term 'know your place' correct that gets instituted?

Sort of the power differential actually managing to move to such a level those experiencing it move to the 'I deserve it, and yes I can understand that I'm the problem here' stage that you might see in other contexts that are more regularly acknowledged as issues of power differentials 'gone wrong'.

 

[bobbler]

They've taken on a big job to try and find ways to pick these pieces apart in order to show this.

But if they manage or get near to starting to do bits of it then it looks like they are trying to square the circle on showing up/how the misinformation and so on operates and what it causes. It's like that reverse of the 'self-perpetuation' and 'perpetuating factors' (don't encourage them, secondary benefits etc) idea that BPS has of 'false beliefs'

This hierarchy is generated in the interrelation between the scientific field, the media meta-field, and the social space. This social structure is incorporated and naturalized by agents in the form of principles of vision and division.

In this way, this violence is based on two defining features: 1) the internalization and normalization of a form of knowledge that becomes “profoundly obscure to itself,” invisible, unnoticed, that is not recognized as such violence (Bourdieu, 1999:126, 2001b:37-38), and 2) that it does not emerge spontaneously in an organized way from rationality, calculation, consciousness, decision, intention or any other name the logicism inherent to the theoretical logics may take, of which the theory of rational choice or methodological individualism are two typical examples, as opposed to practical sense (Bourdieu, 1990, 2000, 2001b:37-38, 2017).

spelling out this 'pull' towards enforcing those with less power to accept a 'shared vision' of what someone/something is and where things stand, what is deserved or acceptable etc through.... what I'm assuming as I haven't got that far yet, behaviours that are coercions, social pressures, nudges and active isolation for those who refuse to 'play into' that 'preferred understanding' and act according to the role that then requires of them. So I guess some of these will be about 'enforcement' and others about what the 'share vision' makes persmissable as behaviour towards those lower down the hierarchy


Oh... and here's hoping... maybe it might be looking as far as drawing a strong dotted line back to those actions --> consequences ie and their 'sources' that are responsible for setting that position for certain things and stoking it etc.?