Civilizing Processes

The theory of “civilizing processes” was developed by Norbert Elias in the 1930s to describe and explain the generation of higher standards of various forms of conduct in the context of unplanned but structured changes in state formation and lengthening chains of social interdependencies (Elias 2000). The idea of civilized conduct may seem a strange companion to popular understandings of consumer culture, when the latter phrase is often associated with hedonism, individualism and excess. But consumer cultures do refer to the meanings, values, emotions and practices surrounding the use of goods and services, including how people use their bodies through acts of consumption. Elias’s book The Civilizing Process, originally published in 1939, examines changing expectations regarding eating especially, but also other bodily practices such as deportment and dressing. Through broader social processes such as urbanization, industrialization and commercialization within the context of the state increasingly pacifying people within the territory (i.e., state agencies such as the police force become solely responsible for keeping the peace), each person comes to depend on more and more interlinked people for the fulfilment of needs and wants on a more consistent basis. For example, in very agrarian societies people tend to rely on themselves or small local groups for the provision of food, but within industrial societies the various processes involved in the production, distribution and consumption of food can involve many individuals connected through specializing in the various parts of these processes (the division of labour). This is an example of lengthening chains of social interdependencies, and as this occurs cultures of consumption also change

Space, Time and the Constitution of Subjectivity: Comparing Elias and Foucault

The work of Foucault and Elias has been compared before in the social sciences and humanities, but here I argue that the main distinction between their approaches to the construction of subjectivity is the relative importance of space and time in their accounts. This is not just a matter of the “history of ideas,” as providing for the temporal dimension more fully in theories of subjectivity and the habitus allows for a greater understanding of how ways of being, acting and feeling in different spaces are related but largely unintended. Here I argue that discursive practices, governmental operations and technologies of the self (explanatory claims of both Foucault and the Foucauldian tradition) take shape as processes within the continuities of the figurational flow connecting people across space and time. Continuity should not be understood as stability or sameness over time, but as the contingent relations between successive social formations. As Elias argues, there is a structure or order to long-term social change, albeit unplanned, and this ultimately provides the broader social explanation for the historicity of the subject. Though discursive practices happen in particular spaces, we must recognise these spaces, and the practices therein, as socially constructed over time in response to largely unplanned moral and cultural developments

The Sustainability of Sustainable Consumption

This article examines the limitations of the concept of sustainable consumption in terms of the inadequate attention given to the social, cultural and historical contextualization of consumption. I argue that Macromarketing should adopt modes of inquiry that more fully engage with this contextualization. The implicit assumptions of ‘sustainable consumption’ center on the rational individual and his or her needs and wants, and neglect the significance of consumption practices as embodying the relations between individuals. Acts of consumption are not in opposition to, and prior to, macro structures and processes, they are macro processes at work. Consumer practices are cultural and social practices that have historically developed, and are manifestations of both local and global linkages of social interdependencies. To continually look at the consumer as the cause of the ecological problem effectively decontextualizes consumption from such interdependencies. It posits a macro problem onto a micro situation and seeks the solution there

Developing Consumer Subjectivity in Ireland: 1900-80

The development of consumer subjectivity cannot be solely understood in terms of the intentions, strategies and discursive practices emanating from diverse power centres. Following Elias, and using Ireland as an empirical case, the consumer is presented as undergoing a shift along a continuum of We–I balances towards the latter pole. This occurs within the context of increasing social interdependencies, functional specialization and social integration. Through complex, unplanned social processes over time, the consumer is seen more individualistically. I conclude by suggesting that there are opportunities to synthesize figurational and Foucauldian approaches to consumer subjectivity once long-term social change is prioritized

Using Documents: a Figurational Approach

Notwithstanding significant changes in the research cultures of many social science disciplines, there remains a certain orthodoxy in the selection of qualitative methods for consumer research in particular. In this field, focus groups and depth (or qualitative) interviews reign supreme, while the use of documentary evidence is sparse. The obvious exception is the growing number of studies written by historians of consumer culture (see for example, Cohen, 2003; De Grazia, 2005; Donohue, 2006). Historians have traditionally used documents as evidence of particular events, values, ideas and practices at specific times and places. These events can then be organised into a sequence over time, thereby constituting a narrative of change. Historians, though, are less likely to try to build an explanatory model of change based on broader social scientific theories (there are of course exceptions, and this is a matter of degree rather than an absolute difference)

Habitus, the Writings of Irish Hunger Strikers and Elias's 'The Loneliness of the Dying'

Elias maintained that over the course of several centuries death has become associated with greater shame and embarrassment feelings due mainly to four interwoven processes. In this paper we consider how these specific processes or ‘special conditions’ Elias referred to, in conjunction with other processes, shaped the experience of dying and the image of death for twentieth century Irish hunger strikers

The Civilizing and Sportization of Gaelic Football in Ireland: 1884–2009

Over the course of the last 125 years the sport of Gaelic football in Ireland has undergone a sportization and civilizing process as the rules governing the sport became stricter and players developed greater levels of self-control. However, the civilizing of Gaelic football was a particularly fragile and uneven process. The growing social desire to diminish displays of violence was moderated by ambivalence towards violence. Gradually the external social controls on players increased and, greater and more stable levels of internalization occurred reflected by more advanced levels of player self-restraint in the control of violence. At the same time the threshold of shame toward displays of violence advanced. This transformation was shaped by lengthening chains of social interdependencies in Ireland

Beyond Logic and Norms: A Figurational Critique of Institutional Theory in Organisation Studies

This paper provides a figurational critique of one of the most dominant theoretical frames within organisation studies - institutional theory. Despite its status as the leading theoretical lens for explaining organisational change, institutional theorists continue to struggle with the so called agencystructure issue and remain divided in how to overcome it. Our primary criticisms concern the propensity to invoke or generate dualisms, the reliance on the sociological frames which sustain this, and the failure to engage in any comprehensive way with Elias’s writings on this subject

The Civilizing of Hurling in Ireland

This essay examines the sport of hurling in Ireland through the theoretical framework of sport and leisure developed by Elias and Dunning. Through an analysis of newspaper reports of games, of rulebooks and codes of play, as well as historical data on increasing social differentiation and integration, we argue that hurling has undergone sportization and civilizing processes. However, due to the unevenness of wider figurational shifts these processes have been non-linear and fragile. Gradually, we see increasing numbers of rules, as well as increasing severity of punishment for the breaking of specific rules relating to violent play. The level and extent of violent conduct also appears to change with both players and spectators becoming more self-controlled. The increasing emotional restraint of spectators and players can be explained by the changes in the overall structure of Irish society during this period, particularly from the 1960s onwards with increasing interdependencies between people

Sport, Unity and Conflict: an enduring social dynamic

The purpose of this article is largely to serve as an introduction to this special issue on sport, unity and conflict. This was the theme of the European Association for Sociology of Sport conference in 2015, held in Dublin, Ireland. The special issue contains articles by the three keynote speakers of the conference – Randall Collins, Anthony King and Roberta Sassatelli. Each dealt with the theme in different, yet compatible, and highly thought-provoking ways. This article will also attempt to elaborate on the theme and argue for the continued significance of the place of unification and conflict processes within sport, and in the relationship between sport and other fields of social life. The discipline of sociology, as is well known, has become more specialized and fragmented over time with distinct fields of research, such as sport, childhood, emotions, war, to name but a few. This process of academic specialization has also continued within these fields, so the sociology of sport now has distinct subfields such as social policy, sport governance, nationalism and sport, sport participation, sport for development, and so on. There is much to be gained from such specialization, such as the sustained examination of particular research problems, but potentially also much to be lost, such as a relatively encompassing theoretical frame that might guide or unify various research enquiries