Seniority and symbolic power in student hazing

Abstract

In the context of Portuguese higher education, hazing consists of a set of initiation rituals in which a vast number of students participate in. It involves the exertion of power by senior students over newcomers, in an asymmetric logic that imposes a seniority-based hierarchy. This article analyzes the manifestations, origins, and mechanisms of legitimation of this power. Such power emanates from the oldness of seniority of students as members of an established group, capable of enforcing norms and boundaries, and reinforces itself through a ritual and symbolic dimension that legitimizes and naturalizes it, thus concealing it as a form of power.