264 Shose Kessi
lives and wellbeing. Uneven access to material power in neo-colonial
contexts is historically tied to the economic and structural conditions of
coloniality. For example, labour conditions for some of the most exploited
workers in the Global South are often the consequence of decisions made
in boardrooms in London or New York (Campbell 2006).
Economic exploitation and structural forms of racial and gender
discrimination are indices of the ideals and practices of global capitalism
and neo-liberalism.
Symbolic Power
Symbolic power refers to access to recognition, respect and dignity
such as positive images of self and the group you belong to and the ability
to voice and gain legitimacy for your views and interests. Patriarchal
societies, for example, tend to produce negative representations of women
in society as subordinate and vulnerable or sexualized objects (Shefer &
Potgieter 2006). This impacts on women’s ability to hold positions of
power in the household and the workplace. Capitalistic societies often
produce negative images of the poor, as lazy and unskilled, which helps to
justify the low wages that industries rely upon (Hayes 2004). People
infected with HIV/AIDS are often stigmatised as having low morals, which
impacts on their ability to seek and receive appropriate care and support
(Crawford 1994).
Symbolic power can also relate to the predominance of the language of
a particular group and objects such as public monuments that tend to
display the heroes of more powerful groups (Kessi, 2019). Symbolic power
is therefore the cultural images and symbols that construct one’s position
in society in relation to others and relates to the coloniality of knowledge.
Scholars have referred to the concept of epistemic violence (Spivak
1988) to describe the colonial roots of knowledge production. As described
above, the epistemic violence of psychological research has had a far-
reaching impact on popular knowledge in contemporary life.