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

2020 ◽  
pp. 272-291
Author(s):  
Barbara Górnicka ◽  
Stephen Mennell
Keyword(s):  
Norbert Elias ◽  
Process Sociology

scholarly journals From Philosophy to Process Sociology

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Máté Gergely Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Scientific Schools ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
Philosophical Movement ◽  
Long Life ◽  
Major Figure ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Process Sociology ◽  
Early Influences

This paper traces the early influences that shaped Norbert Elias’s thought during his formative years in Breslau. Norbert Elias, a major figure of twentieth-century European sociology, built a unique research tradition known today as process sociology after rejecting philosophy at the beginning of his career and polemicized with the dominant social scientific schools of his time throughout his long life. This paper, examining Elias’s less known early writings and particularly his doctoral thesis in philosophy disputed by his supervisor, Richard Hönigswald, argues that to better understand, value and utilize Norbert Elias’s unique processual approach to sociology one must better understand the relationship between the neo-Kantian movement, a today neglected, but once a highly influential continental philosophical movement of the second half of the long nineteenth century, and the thinking of Elias’s rebel generation in interwar Germany. This paper also intends to search for a common ground between the philosophical and the sociological traditions.

scholarly journals REINSTATING FUNCTIONALISM IN THE FIGURATIONAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONS

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 517-528
Author(s):  
Aleksejs Šņitņikovs
Keyword(s):  
Organization Theory ◽  
Contingency Theory ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Process Sociology

Over the past two decades, there have been attempts to apply ideas from figurational sociology founded by Norbert Elias in research of different aspects of organizational life. The central contributions are derived from his theory of the civilizing process and the principles of process sociology. While this research mostly is relevant for contemporary organization theory, many contributions tend to emphasize Elias’s relational approach to the neglect of his functionalism, which underlies the whole corpus of Elias’s works. Rediscovery of Elias’s functionalism opens up the way for a fruitful reinterpretation of the central concept of his sociology, figuration, and enables to find new ways of combining figurational sociology with more familiar approaches to organization theory, in particular, with contingency theory. This helps to identify the factor of technology in the theory of the civilizing process and place it in the context of the concepts of figurational sociology such as interdependence, power and subjectivity, which enhances the analytical strength of figurational approach to organizations. The paper discusses some applications of figurational sociology to date and points to new directions in the study of organizations with the use of the conceptual tools of figurational approach. 

Timing

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-53
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Hom
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Important Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Problem Of Time ◽  
Temporal Concepts ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Process Sociology

Part One introduces the concept of timing and develops a specific theory of narrative timing, which offers a better starting point for analyzing IR’s temporal discourse and for teasing out the temporal dynamics of IR’s knowledge genres. Chapter one surveys several problems with current ways of theorizing time before adapting a novel approach from Norbert Elias’ process sociology. Building on his provocative claim that all “times” emanate from practical and social timing activities—efforts to relate and coordinate important change continua so that they unfold in particular ways—it sketches a basic account of how timing works, covering timing standards, active vs. passive timing, and how we respond to breakdowns in timing. It also shows how symbolic descriptions of timing activities communicate knowledge about these efforts but also bury their practical, processual roots under substantive and reified concepts of “time.” This chapter highlights the political power of timing as a particular and purposeful act of synthesis. Finally, it shows how to unpack from temporal symbols those dynamics intrinsic to both politics and theory. Neutral, homogeneous temporal concepts indicate successful, mostly subconscious timing; while references to the problem of Time suggest more challenging timing efforts.

Sociogenesis and Psychogenesis: Norbert Elias’s Historical Social Psychology as a Research Tradition in Comparative Sociology

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 548-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mennell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Comparative Sociology ◽  
Research Tradition ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Many ◽  
Process Sociology

What is widely known as ‘figurational sociology’, or alternatively ‘process sociology’, is the research tradition stemming from the writings of Norbert Elias. The tradition extends beyond sociology to historians and many other branches of the social sciences. Elias’s Collected Works run to 18 volumes, but the bedrock of his oeuvre is his early study On the Process of Civilisation, in which the interrelation of long-term sociogenetic processes like state-formation and equally long-term psychogenetic processes like conscience- and habitus-formation is first clearly elaborated. Of the many directions in which the theory has been subsequently developed, the most important is Elias’s sociological theory of knowledge and the sciences, which involves a radical rejection of central assumptions of Western philosophy.

scholarly journals Taming the Volcano: Hegemonic and Counter-Hegemonic Masculinities in the Middle Ages

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 251
Author(s):  
Miklos Hadas
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
Process Sociology ◽  
The Middle Ages

Relying to Norbert Elias' process sociology and the Bourdieusian theory of practice, this article intends to outline the beginnings of the long-term transformation of Western masculine habituses. First, it concentrates on hegemonic knightly masculine dispositions, pointing out how these patterns are structured by the uncivilized libido dominandi, i.e. by the more or less free indulgence in physical violence. Next, it scrutinises the counter-hegemonic dispositions of clerics, based on internalised violence control. Finally, it argues that there are several transitory figurations between the two ideal types, i.e. the borders between the knightly and clerical masculinities are blurred. Consequently, as a result of changing structural constraints, by the end of the Middle Ages hybrid masculine habituses are being formed.

Una semblanza de la obra de Norbert Elias

2009 ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Claudette Dudet Lions
Keyword(s):  
Norbert Elias

<p>Este trabajo presenta un panorama general sobre las principales aportaciones teóricas y metodológicas que legó Norbert Elias, mediante su desarrollo en tres momentos teóricos. Los ejes centrales se pueden sintetizar de la siguiente manera: 1) La investigación de periodos de largo alcance con sus modelos sociogenético-psicogenético, procesual y figuracional. 2) La incorporación de unidades empíricas de análisis a través de comparaciones diacrónicas y sincrónicas sistematizadas. 3) La integración de los ámbitos social-personal-biológico. 4) El estudio de las diversas manifestaciones de la coacción y la auto-coacción social como formas del proceso civilizatorio. 5) La inclusión de la comunicación, del lenguaje y del conocimiento, como puntos de partida para la comprensión del devenir de la humanidad. 6) Las relaciones de compromiso-distanciamiento y congruencia con la realidad social como medios de orientación y del saber. 7) La teoría del símbolo y el modelo del crecimiento del conocimiento humano. Desde la perspectiva eliasiana, podemos concretar que la propuesta de este autor va encaminada no solamente hacia la Sociología, sino, en general, a las diversas ciencias sociales, con el planteamiento de una teoría central de las ciencias humanas enfocada a devolverle al conocimiento su función de medio de orientación social y en la que recupera el carácter comunicativo del conocimiento.</p>

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