“Seeing Like a Social Movement”: Symbolic Institutionalization and Cognitive State Capacities

Abstract

Inspired by Scott’s visual cognitive metaphor in Seeing Like a State, we develop the notion of symbolic institutionalization shedding light on the disputes around social movements’ categories and forms of classification, as well as their circulation. The attention given to such symbolic forms is fruitful to the comprehension of the genesis and transformation of the state cognitive capacities, institutionalized via interactions with social movements within the space of certain public policies.