Symbolic Power and the Crisis of Territoriality: Urban Disorder in the 1990s

This chapter analyses the dynamics of state–civil society relationships following the outbreak of disorder in Ronanstown and further explores these relationships as part of an ‘urban process’ (Harvey, 1997). This is the first of a series of linked theoretical case studies: the studies explore how the key actors governed crime and disorder in peripheral settings through symbolic violence. The study reveals a series of ‘calls to order’ (Bourdieu, 1977), where representations of state power were mobilized as a way of ensuring the right response from the subject, or appeals to the habitus. What are specifically explored here are accounts by actors of the situation as they found it and of their symbolic struggle to restore order. These accounts reveal the nature of governance in networks of personal and professional relationships that centred on the ordering of territory.