Symbolic power
The concept of symbolic power, also known as symbolic domination (pouvoir symbolique and domination symbolique in French language) or symbolic violence, was first introduced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to account for the tacit, almost unconscious modes of cultural/social domination occurring within the social habits maintained over conscious subjects. Symbolic power accounts for discipline used against another to confirm that individual's placement in a social hierarchy, at times in individual relations but most basically through system institutions also.