@article{2025:reusswig:figuration,
title = {Figurations of socio-ecological decline: The climate crisis as a process of de- civilisation},
year = {2025},
note = {Climate change is one of the most important pieces of evidence for
what is currently discussed as ‘the Anthropocene’, the age of
human domination of the planet. At the same time, it poses a real
threat to the survival of human civilisation. This article draws on
Norbert Elias’s theory of civilisation to describe this threat as a
process of de-civilisation. To this end, the core analytical
dimensions of (de)civilisation processes used by Elias – the
state’s monopoly on the use of force and control of emotions –
will be modified and expanded. Mechanisms and interrelationships of
socio-ecological processes will be identified that could bring about
the possible collapse of human civilisation in a scenario of severe
climate change, combined with a significant decline of social and
political adaptive capacities. The emergence of populist narratives
and movements is reconstructed in terms of the internal dialectics of
the civilisation process that can accelerate this collapse. Finally,
the article addresses the question of whether and how re-civilisation
could avert collapse and complement the in fact only halved
Anthropocene.},
journal = {Culture, Practice & Europeanization},
pages = {193--221},
author = {Reusswig, Fritz and Lass, Wiebke},
volume = {10},
number = {2}
}