Social control in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Embodied experience and symbolic violence

Abstract

• Pharaonic Egypt’s highly unequal social organisation was maintained not only through the use of physical coercion, but also through embodied daily practice and symbolic violence (Bourdieu). The control of space and physical interactions influenced how ancient Egyptians saw themselves in relation to the rest of society. This paper explores Middle Kingdom visual and written culture through a sociological lens to investigate how social interaction was managed and how this served to reproduce the existing social structure. Through body language, gestures, and spatial relationships, members of society learned to ‘know their place’. Intermediaries were used to manage interactions between higher and lower members of society in order to maintain social separation and preserve awe around the high elite (Goffman). The use of architecture to facilitate surveillance and overseers to supervise workers produced a sense of potential deviancy (Durkheim) that reinforced social divisions and created a form of ‘disciplinary power’, which encouraged individuals to selfmonitor (Foucault). Public spectacles, such as the cattle count and petitioning, were carefully managed arenas of interaction that collapsed the distance between the state and the individual and served as platforms for visually modelling social hierarchy. These often included highly visible displays of state-sanctioned violence, which encouraged individuals to internalise symbolic violence and to self-discipline, even in the absence of constant surveillance and coercive force.