Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T22:08:49.081Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Norbert Elias, Civilising Processes, and Figurational (or Process) Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

By
Barbara Górnicka  and
Stephen Mennell
Edited by
Peter Kivisto
Peter Kivisto
Affiliation:
Augustana College, Illinois
Get access

Summary

Norbert Elias (1897–1990) is best known for his theory of civilizing processes. It was first advanced in 1939, but that was only an early stage in the development of a more comprehensive perspective of wide relevance for the social sciences. This chapter explains how in moving from philosophy to sociology, Elias rejected many of the dualisms common to conventional sociology and developed a “figurational” or “process” sociology that is always simultaneously theoretical and empirical. The theory of civilizing processes is then outlined, along with some of the criticisms leveled at it. Extensions of the theory include debates about decivilizing processes and informalization, as well as foundational studies in the sociology of sport. The chapter concludes with a summary of Elias’s processual theory of knowledge and the sciences and the general characteristics of the figurational research tradition.

Dr. Barbara Górnicka is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at University College Dublin, a Fellow of the Norbert Elias Foundation, and joint editor of the journal Human Figurations: Long-Term Perspectives on the Human Condition. Her publications include Nakedness, Shame, and Embarrassment: A Long-Term Sociological Perspective (Springer, 2016).

Professor Emeritus Stephen Mennell, University College Dublin, was General Editor of the 18-volume Collected Works of Norbert Elias in English (2006–2014). He holds doctorates from Amsterdam and Cambridge. His books include All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France (1985), Norbert Elias, Civilization, and the Human Self-Image (1989; later retitled Norbert Elias: An Introduction), and The American Civilizing Process (2007).

Keywords

Civilizing processesdecivilizing processesprocess theoriessportstate formationviolence
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory , pp. 272 - 291
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adorno, Theodor, Albert, Hans, Dahrendorf, Ralf, Habermas, Jürgen, Pilot, Harald, and Popper, Karl. 1976. The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Brandtstädter, Susanne. 2003. ‘With Elias in China: Civilising Process, Local Restorations and Power in Contemporary Rural China.’ Anthropological Theory 3(1): 87–105.Google Scholar
Brinkgreve, Christien. 1982. ‘On Modern Relationships: The Commandments of the New Freedom.’ Netherlands Journal of Sociology 18(1): 47–56.Google Scholar
Brinkgreve, Christien, and Korzec, Michael. 1979. ‘Kan het civilisatieprocess van richting veranderen?’ [Can the civilising process change direction?] Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift 3(1): 17–32.Google Scholar
Broadhurst, Roderic, Bouhours, Thierry and Bouhours, Brigitte. 2015. Violence and the Civilising Process in Cambodia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dunning, Eric. 1999. Sport Matters: Sociological Studies of Sport, Violence and Civilization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dunning, Eric, and Hughes, Jason. 2013. Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, Process. London: Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, Eric, and Sheard, Kenneth. 2005. Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players, revised edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eisner, Manuel. (ed.) 2011. ‘Violence in Evolutionary and Historical Perspective.’ Special Issue of British Journal of Criminology 51(4): 473–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1939. Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, 2 vols. Basel: Haus zum Falken.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1987. ‘The Changing Balance of Power between the Sexes: A Process-Sociological Study.’ Theory, Culture & Society 4(2–3): 287–316.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2006a. Early Writings. Trans. Jephcott, Edmund. Dublin: UCD Press.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2006b. The Court Society. Trans. Jephcott, Edmund. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 2].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2007. Involvement and Detachment. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 8].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2008. Essays II: On Civilising Processes, State Formation and National Identity. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 15].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2009a. Essays I: On the Sociology of Knowledge and the Sciences. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 14].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2009b. Essays III: On Sociology and the Humanities. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 16].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2010. The Society of Individuals. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 10].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2012a. On the Process of Civilisation. Trans. Jephcott, Edmund. 1 vol., Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 3].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2012b. What Is Sociology? Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 5].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2013a. Interviews and Autobiographical Reflections. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 17].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2013b. Studies on the Germans: Power Struggles and the Development of Habitus in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 11].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 2018. ‘Spontaneity and Self-consciousness.’ In Haut, Jan, Dolan, Paddy, Reicher, Dieter, and Sánchez García, Raúl (eds.), Excitement Processes: Norbert Elias’s Unpublished Works on Sports, Leisure, Body, Culture. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert, and Dunning, Eric. 2008. Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilising Process. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 7].Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert, and Scotson, John L.. 2008. The Established and the Outsiders. Dublin: UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 4].Google Scholar
Garland, David. 2001. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack. 2006. The Theft of History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Górnicka, Barbara. 2016. Nakedness, Shame and Embarrassment: A Long-Term Sociological Perspective. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.Google Scholar
Górnicka, Barbara, Liston, Katie, and Mennell, Stephen. 2015. ‘Twenty-five Years On: Norbert Elias’s Intellectual Legacy 1990–2015.’ Human Figurations 4(3). http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11217607.0004.303Google Scholar
Górnicka, Barbara, and Mennell, Stephen. 2014. ‘Civilizing Processes.’ In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, vol. 1 (pp. 405–408). Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Goudsblom, Johan. 1977. Sociology in the Balance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goudsblom, Johan. 1992. Fire and Civilization. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Ikegami, Eiko. 1995. The Taming of the Samurai. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kilminster, Richard. 2007. Norbert Elias: Post-philosophical Sociology. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Krieken, Robert van. 1998. Norbert Elias. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kürsat-Ahlers, Elçin. 1994. Zur frühen Staatenbildung von Steppenvölkern: Über die Sozio- und Psychogenese der eurasischen Nomadenreiche am Beispiel der Hsiung-Nu und Göktürken mit einem Exkurs über die Skythen [Early State-Formation among the Peoples of the Steppes: On the Sociogenesis and Psychogenesis of the Eurasion Nomadic Empires, with reference to the Hsiung-Nu and with a Digression on the Scythians]. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.Google Scholar
Lakatos, Imre, and Musgrave, Alan. 1970. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leach, Edmund R. 1986. ‘Violence.’ London Review of Books, 23 October.Google Scholar
Mennell, Stephen. 1989. Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-Image. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mennell, Stephen. 1990 ‘Decivilising Processes: Theoretical Significance and Some Lines for Research.’ International Sociology 5(2): 205–223.Google Scholar
Mennell, Stephen. 1994. ‘The Formation of We-images: A Process Theory.’ In Calhoun, Craig (ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (pp. 175–197). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mennell, Stephen. 2007. The American Civilizing Process. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Ohira, Akira. 2017. ‘The Development of Socialism in the Japanese Civilising Process.’ In Ohira, Akira (ed.), Norbert Elias and His Sociological Perspective: Civilisation, Culture and Knowledge in Process (pp. 73–92). Tokyo: DTP Publishing.Google Scholar
Özgören Kınlı, İrem. 2014. ‘Principal Elements of the Ottoman State-formation Process through an Eliasian Perspective.’ In Landini, Tatiana Savoia and Dépelteau, François (eds.), Norbert Elias and Empirical Research (pp. 161–178). New York: Palgrave Macmillan,Google Scholar
Pinker, Steven. 2011. The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. 1945. The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 vols. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. 1957. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl R. 1972. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Quilley, Stephen, and Loyal, Steven. 2005. ‘Eliasian Theory as a “Central Theory” for the Human Sciences.’ Current Sociology 53(5): 809–830.Google Scholar
Scheff, Thomas J. 1994. Bloody Revenge: Emotions, Nationalism, and War. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Scheff, Thomas J., and Retzinger, Suzanne M.. 1991. Emotions and Violence: Shame and Rage in Destructive Conflicts. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Souza, Juliano, and Marchi, Wanderley, Jr. 2014. ‘Civilisation and Violence at the Periphery of Capitalism: Notes for Rethinking the Brazilian Civilizing Process.’ In Landini, Tatiana Savoia and Dépelteau, François (eds.), Norbert Elias and Empirical Research (pp. 117–138). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stauth, Georg. 1997. ‘“Elias in Singapore”: Civilising Processes in a Tropical City.’ Thesis Eleven 50: 51–70.Google Scholar
Stolk, Abraham van, and Wouters, Cas. 1987. ‘Power Changes and Self-respect: A Comparison of Two Cases of Established–Outsiders Relations.’ Theory, Culture and Society 4(2–3): 477–488.Google Scholar
Swaan, Abram de. 1995. ‘Widening Circles of Identification: Emotional Concerns in Sociogenetic Perspective.’ Theory, Culture and Society 12(2): 25–39.Google Scholar
Swaan, Abram de 2001. ‘Dyscivilization, Mass Extermination, and the State.’ Theory, Culture & Society 18(2–3): 265–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swaan, Abram de 2015. The Killing Compartments: The Mentality of Mass Murder. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. Parsons, Talcott. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1978 [1922]. Economy and Society, 2 vols. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1956. Language, Thought, and Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Bryan. 1977. ‘A Tribute to Elias.’ New Society (7 July): 15–16.Google Scholar
Wouters, Cas. 1998a. ‘Balancing Sex and Love since the 1960s Sexual Revolution.’ Theory, Culture and Society 15(3–4): 187–214.Google Scholar
Wouters, Cas. 1998b. ‘Changes in the “Lust Balance” of Sex and Love since the Sexual Revolution: The Example of The Netherlands.’ In Bendelow, G. and Williams, S. J. (eds.), Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues (pp. 228–249). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wouters, Cas. 2004. Sex and Manners: Female Emancipation in the West, 1890–2000. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Wouters, Cas. 2007. Informalisation – Manners and Emotions since 1890. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Zwaan, Ton. 2001. Civilisering en decivilisering: Studies over staatsvorming en geweld nationalisme en vervolging. Amsterdam: Boom.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×