European Caricatures of Immigrants and their Ideological Loads as Determinants of Power Relations

The symbolic hegemony that stems from the problem of social production and the proliferation of social class structures since Bourdieu and Althusser has attempted to understand the social structure and the continuity of the social stratification wherein the interests of the majority and those who represent the lower class are conflicting. In Europe, the failure of the proletarian revolution has made ideology more and more central in the explanation of the reasons behind the continued stability of western capitalism despite the world wars and the great depression. The two great concepts “hegemony” and “ideology” remain key factors in the frameworks of consciousness and intellectuality. This has contributed in deepening and broadening the sociological understanding of symbolic authority, power and power relations; by identifying the material and non-mental elements in the dynamics of symbolic power mechanisms.