Introduction to the Special Issue of Human Figurations on Civilising Offensives

Abstract

This collection of papers explores the intellectual origins and continuing relevance of the theoretical concept of the 'civilising offensive'. It seeks to stimulate further inquiry and encourage comparative analyses and theoretical syntheses. The aim of this special issue is to bring together an interdisciplinary, international and inter-generational group of scholars who have engaged with the civilising offensive in various ways to assess its continued relevance in understanding historical and contemporary social processes and group relations characterised by unequal power balances. Implicit within this is an attempt to problematise and nuance the concept in order to move beyond the over-simplistic conceptualisation of civilising offensives as elite, moralising projects targeted at the ‘uncivilised’ lower classes; and to link the concept back to Elias's civilisation theory. The papers that follow represent a diverse collection of writings and applications of the concept: from its origins and development in the Netherlands to attempts to civilise children; and from class-based civilising missions through to the governance of professional cycling.