The Modern State and the Primitive Accumulation of Symbolic Power

The exercise of symbolic power has become a privileged focus of scholarship on the state, but without much attention to how states acquired this power in the first place. This article lays a foundation for systematic historical inquiry into the primitive accumulation of symbolic power by modernizing states. It introduces an analytical framework for research on how new domains of administrative activity become recognized as legitimate state practices. This framework is deployed to analyze how a popular revolt in northeastern Brazil managed to frustrate the Brazilian state's attempt to implement civil registration in the mid‐19th century. The conclusion considers broad implications of this analysis for students of modern state formation and suggests the need for comparative historical analyses that historicize the naturalization of state power.