Process Sociology and Human Emancipation: Involvement and Detachment Reconsidered

Abstract

This paper raises questions about the ramifications of Elias’s more ethical and political observations for the longer-term development of process sociology and specifically for its relationship with the critical or emancipatory track taken by Marx and the Frankfurt School. Necessarily, the article begins by drawing attention to particular normative claims in Elias’s writings. It then discusses core themes in Kilminster’s analysis of involvement and detachment, noting in particular his emphasis on Elias’s ‘secular humanism’ and ‘humanity-centred’ orientation. The following argument considers how recent arguments for closer engagement with public policies with negative effects on outsider groups – for ‘detached-involvement’– provide an important bridge to scholars in critical research communities. The article concludes with some observations about the potential ‘reconciliation’ of process sociology and critical theory that are designed to encourage future discussion and debate about the emancipatory dimensions of Elias’s position.