Civilizing Process Research Articles

Civilising the Ex-Colonisers? Counter-Hegemonic Discourses at Workplaces in Maputo

This article follows the call in decolonial research to recognise other ways of knowing. It explores a specific kind of knowledge: namely, what we describe as ‘counterhegemonic civilising discourses’, or everyday efforts by the ex-colonised to civilise the ex-coloniser. In the article, we analyse Mozambican workers’ discursive attempts to teach what they see as ‘proper’ or ‘moral’ behaviour to Portuguese bosses and managers whom they meet at workplaces in Maputo. We have chosen to discuss this transmission of knowledge as a civilisation process, and we focus on forms of knowledge that concerns knowing how to do, or practical competences. This constitutes a break with the (post-)colonial civilising mission. The ‘white man’s burden’ of civilising the unwilling colonial worker is implicitly turned on its head when Mozambicans describe their strong dislike of uneducated Portuguese people’s behaviour and their own attempts at correcting this. Research on labour relations in colonial Mozambique is extensive and established, but this article moves the focus to contemporary relations of coloniality. It brings up three different sets of counter-hegemonic civilising discourses. The first concerns language and the use of blasphemies; the second has to do with social and moral norms and values in relation to sickness and death; the third concerns civic integration or the compliance with Mozambican rules and regulations. The everyday character of these discourses is important, and we see them as emerging from people’s struggle to challenge the abyssal line separating the epistemologies of the global north and south. The delineation of these inconspicuous discourses of civilisation is our contribution to the field of decolonial studies in lusophone Africa and to post-abyssal research on ‘emergence’.

PETER VOULKOS CERAMICS: ESCAPE INTO FORM AS THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM MATERIAL

It is thought that the art and design of ceramics led the art and craft production of humanity in the civilization process. Ceramics, which has such a rich history, has a permanent meaning that has taken its place in the audience's visual reading. This situation arises from the nature of the goods to which ceramics has owed its existence since primitive times. Historically, the imaginary and object characteristics of ceramics and the meaning associated with it follow a process that is shaped by primitive needs, turning into functional materials that help life, and in this respect, into goods. In this sense, ceramics created an intercultural code in the minds of the audience regarding the characteristics of the goods with which ceramics is associated. In this context, the return of the material and traditional object production in the art of ceramics also gains a functional form semiotic expression. Especially in the face of the changing artistic expression and the traditional understanding of art, which was falling apart after 1960, it is seen that the art of ceramics passed over this atmosphere with the discipline's own inner conflict regarding functionality. Ceramic artists or artists who prefer ceramics as a material and use ceramic technology in the production of art objects have made it possible to get rid of the traditional codes of ceramics and to reveal their subjective art creations by being loyal to the material that forms the character of the discipline only through the practices they carry out regarding form. In this sense, Peter Voulkos, whose art practice is discussed, has an abstract expressionist attitude that eliminates functions such as cutting, adding, drilling and assemblage, which he applies in his intervention to ceramic form, apart from the predetermined and taken-for-granted situation such as function and usability, by breaking it off from its functional context and with an intuitive understanding of shaping examined. Keywords: Ceramic Art, Peter Voulkos, Contemporary art

Beyond the “War on Terror”: Mobilities and Regimes of Inequality; An Epistemological and Ethical Reflection

At the intersection of multipolar, multi-scalar sites of mutual exchange and tension, Afghanistan and Iraq conjure imaginaries of shadowy and risky geographies wired up to dispersed terrorist cells around the globe. These spaces constitute the sites where the “civilizing process” of the “War on Terror” takes place, “laboratories of globalization” where global hegemonic neoliberal projects of free market democratization and development get stranded. At the same time, they are spaces where global interconnections are accelerated, and where multiple mobilities, often contingent upon expectations about the successes and failures of reconstruction, are interwoven, producing networks that extend well beyond national borders.

Художественный мир рассказа Анны Зегерс «Предания о неземных пришельцах»

The aim of the study is to consider the poetics of the story “The Legends of Unearthly Aliens” by A. Zegers. The article analyses such aspects of the Legends’ poetics as composition, conflicts, a system of images, figurative and expressive means. The scientific novelty of our work lies in an integrated approach to the study of the artistic world of this story. The obtained results have shown that the fantastic organizes the artistic world of the work while revealing the author’s view of civilizational processes. The analysis of the figurative and expressive means has demonstrated the use of sharp contrasts, capacious comparisons, details-symbols by the author.

POPULISMO VS COVID-19: PROCESSOS CIVILIZATÓRIOS E DESCIVLIZADORES EM TEMPOS DE CATÁSTROFE GLOBAL

Abstract What constitutes a “civilized society”? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as one that has reached “an advanced stage of human development in which people […] behave well towards each other and share a common culture.” Yes, but there is more to “being civilized” than this. Based on Norbert Elias’ The Civilizing Process, this paper examines how the rise of populism in leading Anglo-American societies has undermined many of the essential attributes of civilized societies. Although the emergence of COVID-19 further added to this decivilizing process, COVID-19 and populism oppose each other. The former shows the empty promises and fraud of the latter, which can only be defeated by belief in science and a strong (but accountable) central state authority. Despite damaging individuals and societies, COVID-19 ironically helps strengthen the civilising process and weaken populism.

Cyrillic in the Geolinguistic Space.

The position of the Cyrillic alphabet in the modern world and in historical retrospective is analyzed in this article. The causes and consequences of the rejection of the Cyrillic script by a number of countries are considered. Calculations of the number of users of the Cyrillic alphabet from the beginning of the 20th century and a forecast of changes in their number in the coming years are given. A steady decrease in the proportion of the users of the Cyrillic alphabet is anticipated compared to the number of those who use other alphabets (the Latin alphabet, Indic scripts, hieroglyphs, and the Arabic script). The functioning of world languages and alphabets in 2020, including on the Internet, is assessed. It is noted that the position of the Cyrillic script in the world is affected by the decrease in the number of those who speak Russian. Some proposals are made to support the Cyrillic alphabet and increase its role in civilizational processes.

NORBERT ELIAS E MULHERES: VIDA, PRODUÇÃO ESCRITA E NOVAS PERSPECTIVAS SOBRE A QUESTÃO DE GÊNERO

Abstract Sex, gender and gender relations are generally considered minor issues in Norbert Elias’s historical sociology. However, the sociologist placed greater emphasis on gender relations and inequalities than many of his contemporaries did. For Elias’s readers, gender relations and their transformations in terms of the power balance between sexes are falling under the theory of established-outsiders relations and represent a rather crucial aspect of the civilising process(es). Gender relations and their transformations also refer, in Elias’s work, to the emancipatory role of law and rights, to transformations of sensibilities, to increasing individualisation and integration of humanity. Starting not from gender studies but from a situated reading of Elias’s texts, this article also suggests that re-exploring certain aspects of Elias’s life, like his relationship to women and men, makes sense so we can better understand his sociology and its topicality in the post-#MeToo context.

Jesus en las Americas: Exploring Latter-day Saint Latinx Politics and Culture

Jesus en las Americas: Exploring Latter-day Saint Latinx Politics and Culture

NORBERT ELIAS E A SOCIOLOGIA FIGURACIONAL: UMA ENTREVISTA COM STEPHEN MENNELL

Abstract This is an interview with Stephen Mennell and a set of texts related to Norbert Elias’s figurational sociology that make up the current volume of Sociologia & Antropologia. Mennell provides readers with a review of figurational sociology, as well as its reception and diffusion. More specifically, he reflects upon Elias’s legacies for sociology and his movement away from philosophy; the publication of the collected works of Norbert Elias; authors who influenced Elias; the importance of the sociology of knowledge and the sciences in the body of Elias’s work; the understanding of the concepts of civilising and decivilising processes, and functional democratisation and de-democratisation; resemblances and differentiations between Elias and Bourdieu; concluding with some reflections on the book The American Civilizing Process, published by Mennell in 2007, and on the use of figurational sociology for the study of current political issues.

The study of a socio-cultural phenomenon of capital

The article is devoted the study of a socio-cultural phenomenon — Nur-Sultan. Its content reflects the views of focus group participants on important aspects of the study of the role of Nur-Sultan in the cultural and civilizational process: The socio-cultural features of the capital, the perception of the urban space of Nur-Sultan, intercultural communication. Nur-Sultan as a phenomenon becomes a subject of knowledge of the humanities where domestic scientists attach special significance to judgment of a role of the capital in public consciousness, to formation of patriotism and civil feelings and studied socio-cultural features of the capital, factors and mechanisms of the organization of cross-cultural communications. The new capital is represented the center which has to give an impetus to the economic growth of the country, overcome uneven placement of the population, fasten multiethnic structure of Kazakhstan, to become the city cosmopolitan. As a result of discussion, the impact of the capital on the political culture of youth and its social activity, young people’s views about the prospects and cultural significance of Nur-Sultan, the understanding of the interaction of scientific-technical, educational, political, artistic and aesthetic spheres of the organization of cultural process were identified.

THE PLACE AND ROLE OF YRYM IN THE FORMATION OF THE CULTURAL CODE OF THE KAZAKHS

If we consider the Kazakh custom as an unwritten law of the steppe, then superstition is one of the points of this law, that is, the main means of education. In the article, the authors analyzed the superstitions of the Kazakh people, which, from the accumulated experience for years associated with the Oriental life, natural phenomena, stopped with ritual rituals. These are Kazakh rituals originating from beliefs and sorted by life description in the context of modern civilizational processes emanating from ritual rituals. In addition, the article makes deep horizons of the views of swollen and foreign researchers of superstition concerning the upbringing of children, the rejection of other people’s podvechek, the preliminary revival of lofty risks. Kazakh superstitions are interested in a special place in the formation of a unique civilization, which is absorbed by the cultures of the world. Therefore, today it is important to systematize the superstitions that make up the code of Kazakh culture.

A History of Manners and Civility in Thailand by Patrick Jory

<i>A History of Manners and Civility in Thailand</i> by Patrick Jory

Виртуальный педагогический класс в контексте классического университета: принципы организации, проблемы, решения

The creation of pedagogical classes based on the initiative of teachers usually working in higher education organizations is now becoming compulsory, as required by the Russian Ministry of Education. New normative and methodological documents require a focus on modules and disciplines whose content largely mirrors higher education curricula, and school teachers become the main instructors in psycho-pedagogical classes. This approach seems insufficiently developed: it does not take into consideration the age specifics of schoolchildren, narrows down the topics of these classes and overestimates the capabilities of learners during pedagogical tryouts. This article proposes a different program content for psycho-pedagogical classes, based on the experience gained by Saratov University and other universities in the country and implemented by leading university professors. The value system, current principles and conceptual model of the university pedagogical class are presented. Schoolchildren listen to lectures on great educators and their influence on civilizational processes, discuss pedagogical communication tools, learn about digital hygiene, explore generation issues in their own lives and in the professional activities of teachers, and get acquainted with pedagogical design. Expanding the thematic core, actualization of the general background knowledge, facts, events, cases, embedding the educational paradigm into the personal paradigm of each learner appears to be a cutting-edge and timely principle for the design of a pedagogical class. The article demonstrates the potential of binary classroom technology through a themed dialogue of teachers, framed as a discussion. The conceptual basis of the proposed model is a dialogue which is implemented through continuous feedback using the advantages of videoconferencing platforms, social networks and e-mail.

French Romance, Medieval Sweden and the Europeanisation of Culture by Sophia Lodén

Reviewed by: French Romance, Medieval Sweden and the Europeanisation of Culture by Sophia Lodén Joseph M. Sullivan sophia lodén, French Romance, Medieval Sweden and the Europeanisation of Culture. Studies in Old Norse Literature. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2021. Pp. 216. isbn: 978–1–84384–582–9. $99. In this groundbreaking study of the reception of French literature in Sweden, Sofia Lodén convincingly shows how extensively Sweden and Europe's north were integrated into the larger medieval European intellectual and courtly currents radiating out of France from the beginning of the twelfth century. As Lodén demonstrates, the skillful translation into Swedish of narratives originating in French contributed in fundamental ways to the civilizing process and the Europeanization of Sweden from the beginning of the Late Middle Ages through the beginning of the sixteenth century. As her central case studies, the author analyzes four Swedish translations of courtly narratives alongside their ultimately French-language sources. To each of these case studies she devotes a chapter, in which she applies a separate, carefully chosen theoretical framework. Thus, she discusses the French Valentin et Orson and its fifteenth-century Swedish adaptation in terms of their authors' constructions of beastliness and the place of the animal alongside the human. And in a brilliant discussion of Paris et Vienne and its fragmentary Swedish adaptation from the sixteenth century, she employs ideas of gender to illuminate how these texts construct masculinities. Her remaining two case studies are devoted to narratives from the most important set of secular texts in the Old Swedish courtly canon, that is, from the so-called Eufemiavisor (or Tales of Eufemia), a group of three narratives from the early fourteenth century that were commissioned by the German-born Norwegian queen Eufemia, probably as political gifts for the Swedish court. For the Eufemiavisor's version of the Old French Floire et Blancheflor and its French sources, Lodén takes a close look at the very different roles that childhood plays in those texts. And with the best known of the Eufemiavisor, and the most influential of all secular courtly narratives in Old Swedish, namely, Herr Ivan—the masterful Old Swedish translation of Chrétien's Yvain—Lodén again turns to ideas of gender, this time however showing how varied the portrayal of female characters is in the French original and in its Swedish rewriting. Lodén's decision to employ different theoretical lenses for each of her case studies is admirable. Specifically, it allows her both to make use of some of the most significant current analytical frameworks in medieval studies and to choose that particular framework which works best to illuminate the particular narrative that the individual chapter treats. In so doing, Lodén deftly avoids a mistake common to many otherwise solid monographs, which use only one dominant theoretical framework throughout, even when that framework does not lend itself equally well to all the artifacts a monograph discusses. As if the author recognized that most readers would be interested in only one or two particular chapters, and not necessarily in reading her entire study, Lodén has chosen wisely to make each of her case studies stand on its own. In fact, all four case studies can be read independently and, indeed, out of order with no loss of comprehensibility. I would recommend, however, that those readers who wish [End Page 99] to read only one or two chapters also read the book's introduction and conclusion, both of which are excellent and which together concisely summarize the study's most important overall findings. Several other factors also make Lodén's study important and, as a work of comparative literature scholarship, exemplary. Thus, her focus is not limited to the consideration of Swedish translations and their French sources. Instead, Lodén extensively consults versions of these originally French narratives in other medieval languages as well, including, for instance, in medieval Spanish, Italian, German, Icelandic, and English. While holding so many strands simultaneously in the discussion of a particular narrative is perhaps the most challenging task of the comparativist scholar, Lodén manages such analysis almost effortlessly. (Only in the case of Floire et Blancheflor does...

Animatismo. Antes e depois de tudo

This article deals with the concept of “animatism”, which Freud used in Totem and Taboo (1913), lent to the ethnologist Robert Marett, for whom it consisted of a pre-animist phase of humanity. By using it, Freud broadened his scope in this work of investigating the origin of religion and morality, extending it to the origin and destiny of the civilization itself. He concluded that its emergence would have been marked by an abandonment of the state of nature, motivated by a geological-climatic event, which was followed by a civilizing process with peculiar characteristics. Among them, that of giving rise to a history sustained by a tendency to return to the abandoned state, to which men have remained fixed ever since. As I intend to demonstrate, a history marked by a type of entropic destiny of humanity. Constructed as an unfolding of the philosophies of Charles de Brosses and Auguste Comte, it is a point of view that Freud supported through a phylogenetic and ontogenetic genealogical research about the conditions of possibility of humanity, using certain strata of Anthropology and Psychology. The result of this article, through bibliographical research in primary and secondary sources, was the naming and clarification of what would be the declinist psychoanalytic philosophy of Freud’s history.

Is it possible to overcome disgust? An ambivalent emotion

A growing interest for the emotion of disgust has recently arisen in international contexts acrossseveral fields of research. A general definition of disgust will be primarily assumed: by disgust I understand a total rejection that generates a motion of repulsion and removal of an object that is in the proximity of the subject, without constituting a real danger. In reference to the notion of taboo, I will first of all assume its ambivalence. The emotion of disgust, essentially natural and cultural at the same time, as a typical trait of the process of human civilization that distinguishes humans from animals. At variance with other theories of disgust, I will argue that it is not possible to theoretically articulate the overcoming of disgust, but that it is possible to educate about this emotion through artistic experience. On this ground, an ethics of disgust will be outlined, which starts from the acknowledgement of one of our most bodily emotions.

Arte e tabù: il disgusto e i limiti della rappresentazione

Referring to the notion of representation, I will argue the idea that disgust continues to constitute a limitation for art and that the presence of the disgusting can be read through the Freudian notion of taboo. The indulgence of artistic creation in disgust, in fact, would confirm the fact that only what is domesticated, thus what does not arouse authentic disgust, can be assimilated by art. On the contrary, authentic disgust remains taboo insofar as it indicates the absolutely other, the unassimilable, a non-domesticated animality extraneous to the process of civilization. It is, after all, what classical aesthetics had already shown and that today can be reread in Freudian terms.

Chestvovanie inklyuzivnosti: organizatsiya i ritual sporta massovogo uchastiya

We describe the best organizational practices, ceremonies, and rituals of mass participation sports events. In addition to participant observation of endurance races in distance running, triathlon, cycling, swimming, and cross-country skiing between 2003 and 2019, statistical and document analysis was used as the research methodology. Special focus was placed on triathlon in Europe. We argue that the phenomenon of mass participation sports is a consequence of the Expressive model of sports (EMS) as a social construct shared by the community. We explain how the EMS is implemented in the organization of events through rituals, conventions, and institutions. Firstly, within the EMS, the race finish is recognized as an achievement by the organizers and the participant’s community. Secondly, the EMS focuses on ordinary, non-elite amateurs as main event participants. This means an open entry to participation, with no selection by skill level; permissive time limits; equal distances, entry fees, and service levels for both elite and non-elite athletes; a joint festival and event venue; competition schedule comfortable for amateurs (non-elite races on the weekend). Thirdly, the EMS revises the linear ranking of competitions through a new hierarchy model, an age-weighted presentation of results, and an inclusive celebration ritual. This includes the grouping of athletes into ordinary amateurs with no reward and elite/professionals, who compete for absolute an ranking and/or prizes, a broad division of amateurs by age groups (95–99, 90–94, 85–89 and down to 20–24, 15–19) and the celebration of the oldest athletes and last finishers. The theoretical framework combines the insights from the civilization process, evolutionary and symbolic anthropology. Since endurance races are seen as rites of passage and liminal processes, we emphasize the importance of rituals as a means of a reconciliation of communitas.

El vínculo formativo de Centros de Gestión y Desarrollo Deportivo en universidades

The sociogenesis of humanity throughout all civilization processes, has reported in the historical development of physical activity as an important platform for human development and a source that generates countless benefits for society, relying on collaborative knowledge from the biological, psychological, socioanthropological, socio-cultural, socioeconomic, educational, epistemological and spiritual perspective, positioning physical activity as a knowledge based on an integral vision. This condition of integrality of physical activity turns it into a world of possibilities to favor any type of population in favor of benefits for its development and even more to the student population that conforms the different faculties of the University of Guayaquil, whose lifestyles, ways of feeding, logics of insertion to society and cultural habits, many of them inheritances of legacies foreign to their idiosyncrasy, have generated direct incidences in their personal development.

Interpretation of Online Artworks of Digital Art Design in the New Media Environment.

In order to realize the interpretation of online artworks, the art design of artworks is studied on the basis of new media digital environment. Through the presentation of digital works, the enhancement of dramatic art appreciation, the balanced display of art appreciation, and the enhancement of digital aesthetic creation, the interpretation of artworks has been successfully completed, which strongly supports the digitization of new media. Art design is to constantly breed an updated online art space and attract and summon more viewers' new experience, new creation, and new perception so as to trigger and develop new propositions, new exploration, and new atmosphere of new media drama. For the current construction of traditional art design, new media digital technology plays a major role. The transformation of digital technology and Internet media is another “holographic” extension of the human body, which has an extremely strong impact on new media art and comprehensively updated our life, art, and aesthetic concepts. This is not only a revolution of media but also a change of art. At the same time, it is also accompanied by the “expansion” of art theory. What this change ultimately needs to complete is the revolution of media culture that affects the development process of human civilization.