Populism as New Wine in Old Bottles in the Context of Germany: ‘Symbolic Violence’ as Collective Habitus That Devalues the Human Capital of Turks.

Abstract

Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Populism in Germany is not a new phenomenon. For a long time, the alleged integration problems of Turkish workers in Germany have been at the center of the dominant discourse and academic studies. This paper demonstrates how ‘symbolic violence’ as collective habitus frames the human capital of Turks as deficient, a phenomenon which has prevailed even prior to the recent populist movements. Drawing on a company case study, interviews, and observations, our empirical investigation operationalises and expands the Bourdieusian conceptual trinity of habitus, capital, and symbolic violence through the lens of ethnicity and how it relates to populism.