Norbert Elias’s extended theory of community: From established/outsider relations to the gendered we–I balance

Abstract

. my answer to the question, 'Can an African ever learn English well enough to be able to use it effectively in creative writing?' is certainly, 'Yes.' If on the other hand you ask, 'Can he ever learn to use it like a native speaker?' I should say, 'I hope not.' It is neither necessary nor desirable for him to be able to do so. The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use.

Post-Truth Society? An Eliasian Sociological Analysis of Knowledge in the 21st Century

“…Second, Scotson (2008 [1965]) noted that while outsiders find relatively little appeal in exercising self-restraint in accordance with dominant social norms (and thus can readily embrace post-truth), the exercise of self-restraint is central to the emotional bonds and unity of established groups. Third, in The Society of Individuals Elias (2010) noted that people often resort to nostalgic representations of past social order in time of pronounced social change (Crow and Laidlaw, 2019). Elias (2007Elias ( [1987: 25) also suggested that 'from the relative pacification of non-human nature stands out all the more starkly the untamed ferocity of the struggles between human groups themselves'.…”

“…Second, in The Established and the Outsiders Scotson (2008 [1965]) examined the lived experience of 'truth' in everyday social contexts. This community study demonstrated the prevalence of seemingly irrational behaviours and illustrated how the 'wish dreams' of many group identities remained relatively static due to a 'drag effect' exerted by ideas inevitably rooted in the past (Crow and Laidlaw, 2019). The work further highlighted how the power imbalances between different groups determined what Elias (2007Elias ( [1987) called the 'social fund of knowledge'.…”

“…Encapsulated in The Established and the Outsiders, therefore, was the interdependence of involvement and detachment, the fusion of emotion and fact in shaping beliefs and a broader social structural analysis of the way power relations influence the relative acceptance of different explanatory accounts. The conclusion to The Established and the Outsiders illustrated the broader applicability of these ideas by drawing parallels to the behaviour of other groups such as nobles at royal courts (Crow and Laidlaw, 2019).…”

“…Similarly, while many 'followers' are motivated by interest and admiration, 'fake followers' are prevalent enough to warrant prohibition and sanction by Twitter (Khalil et al, 2017). Previous pillars of community identity -established networks of local relations, a sense of belonging rooted in place and a sense of status instilled through socialisation (Crow and Laidlaw, 2019) -are inevitably diluted as social worlds move online. Thus, what is significant about the rise of social media vis-a-vis post-truth, is that these new technologies enable a lengthening of the interdependency ties which shape knowledge production and consumption, and thus reconfigure the type and scope of human relations.…”

Collaborative research and the emotions of overstatement: four cautionary tales but no funeral

“…Elias and Scotson's (1965) study provides another interesting case of what researchers outwith the collaborative approach have been able to achieve. The argument that the book advances about stigmatisation of subordinate groups has been remarkably influential, and its analysis of the emotional dimensions of group identification continue to be insightful more than half a century on from its publication, but the study was not undertaken collaboratively and its message about prejudice was an uncomfortable one for the members of the community being studied (Crow and Laidlaw 2019). Whether a more collaborative approach would have allowed the criticism to be made of community leaders who 'spoke as if the "village" were in fact, as they thought it ought to be, a harmonious, wholly united and wholly good community' (Elias and Scotson 1965, 164) must be open to doubt, not least because of the hostility experienced by other researchers whose descriptions of communities were less flattering that the dominant images that those communities' members had of themselves (Crow 2018).…”