In cultural and social studies, configurations are patterns of behaviour, movement (→movement culture) and thinking, which research observes when analysing different cultures and/ or historical changes. The term “configurations” is mostly used by comparative anthropological studies and by cultural history. Configurational analysis became a special method by the Stuttgart school of Historical Behaviour Studies during the 1970s and later by body culture studies in Denmark.
Configurational analysis is marked by its distance towards the history of ideas and intentions, which are conceived as mainstreams in historical studies. Configurations of human behaviour and movement have attracted special attention in the framework of phenomenology (→Phenomenology (philosophy)) and particularly in materialist phenomenology.
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Configurations in different cultures were studied since early twentieth century.
Ruth Benedict (1934) contributed to the anthropology of Native Americans by using the term of “configurations” as a translation of German “Gestalt de:Gestalt”. Configuration denoted a whole of social attitudes, practices and beliefs and was nearly identical with “culture”. It was used for comparison – between the Hopi Indians and the Indians of the prairies, between Japanese and Western culture – and in a perspective of cultural relativism: Each culture has configurations of its own [1].
Gaston Bachelard (1938) used the term ”diagram” to describe an order of conceived reality both in scientific and in literary understanding. This was his key to a "materialist psychoanalysis" [2]. Bachelard’s approach became later a source of inspiration for Michel Foucault.
Norbert Elias (1939, 1970) described certain patterns of relations between human beings as figuration [1] – in English: ”configuration” – becoming visible in play of cards, dance and football. He described these configurations as das sich wandelnde Muster, das die Spieler miteinander bilden (the changing pattern, which players form with each other), Spannungsgefüge (relations of suspense), Interdependenz der Spieler (interdependence of players), and das fluktuierende Spannungsgleichgewicht, das Hin und Her einer Machtbalance (the fluctuating balance of suspense, the to-and-fro of a balance of power) [3] This became a key to his sociology of civilization.
Michel Foucault (1966) used the term la configuration in historical studies of philosophy, in order to characterize “the order of the things”, patterns of knowledge changing in epistemological disruptions. The configurations of savoir changed, according to Foucault, in following historical steps [4]:
There are indicators that these configurations may disappear or transform again in a post-modern age.
Configurational analysis (in German Konfigurationsanalyse) became a particular methodological approach in the framework of Historical Behaviour Studies, as they were developed at the University of Stuttgart during the 1970s by the historians August Nitschke and Henning Eichberg. Nitschke analyzed raum-zeitliche Muster (patterns of space and time) and Körperanordnungen (orders of the body) as “configurations” when comparing patterns of art and patterns of social behavior. Configurations were similarities, analogies and changing patterns of figures in a given space [5].
This analytical approach was comparable to concepts, which in recent time have challenged historiography: mentality (Georges Duby), affect control (Norbert Elias) (→Affect control theory), perception (Lucien Febvre), structural thinking (Claude Lévi-Strauss), needs (David McClelland), and interaction (George Herbert Mead) [6]. The configurational approach contrasted deliberately with the mainstream of historiography explaining history by the aims of its actors (pragmatism), as an expression of weltanschauung (psychology and history of ideas) or by interests (in social history) [7].
The configurational analysis was especially applied to comparative and historical studies of sport and dance as indicators of social change. The comparative analysis of athletics, ball games, equestrianism, martial arts, gymnastics, and dance showed some common configurations as: the functional parceling of space, a new dynamic of “progress” and speed, the modern taste of suspense, the principle of competition, and the production of result tables. The configurations of movement culture prefigured the patterns of productivity orientation, which characterized the Industrial Age [8].
The applied concept of “configuration” was here different from "system" (→cultural system) (being more static and systematic, and related to the negative term of the non-systematic), from “style” (being more aesthetic and having undertones of taste, subjectivity and stylization), and from “structure” (having undertones of “the functional”, as a heritage from structural functionalism in sociology). In contrast to these terms, configuration denotes a more dynamic pattern in change.
Configurations as patterns of behaviour, movement and thinking reflect man's perception of reality. They give an epochal pattern of perception which concurrently defines a framework for action. But in no way they describe the whole reality of an epoch. Furthermore, their power to explain individual actions is limited. The epochal "reality" is no straitjacket which does not allow freedom of action. Nevertheless, in each epoch there are typical ways to act or to behave, to move or to think. They correspond with the way people perceive reality. Acting or thinking in this way may be right or wrong – it is typical anyway [9].
Studies of body culture, which spread in Denmark during the 1980s, developed the configurational analysis further, revealing inner tensions and contradictions of a given society [10]. The configurative approach was applied to the analysis and especially to comparison of different fields of activities: popular festivity, fitness culture (→physical fitness), sportive and non-sportive ball games, sport racing and parcour, different outdoor activities, and different health cultures. Configurational analysis focused on bodily movement in time and space, on the energy of movement, on interpersonal relations, and on the objectification of movement. Above this basis, analysis included the superstructure of institutions and ideas (→Base and superstructure), which organize and reflect collective actions and interests.
Configurational analysis can be compared with other contemporary approaches in cultural and social studies.
In any of these approaches, “configuration” made it possible to compare concrete human practice – i.e. “material” bodily phenomena – with larger spheres of society and culture.
Bachelard, Gaston 1938: La psychanalyse du feu. – English 1964: Psychoanalysis of fire. Boston: Beacon
Benedict, Ruth 1934: Patterns of Culture. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin
Bourdieu, Pierre 1966/67: "Champs intellectuel et projet créateur." In: Temps modernes, 22, 865-906
Dietrich, Knut 2001 (ed.): How Societies Create Movement Culture and Sport. University of Copenhagen: Institute of Exercise and Sport Sciences
Eichberg, Henning 1978: Leistung, Spannung Geschwindigkeit. Sport und Tanz im gesellschaftlichen Wandel des 18./19. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta
Elias, Norbert 1939: Über den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp . – English 1982: The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell
Foucault, Michel 1966: Les mots et les choses. Paris: Gallimard . – English 1970: The Order of Things. An Archeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon
Kalckhoff, Andreas (1982): "Historische Verhaltensforschung: Ethnologie unserer Vergangenheit. Die Konfiguration eines Aufstandes im 10. Jahrhundert", in Gehlen, Rolf & Wolf, Bernd (eds.): Werner Müller zu seinem 75.Geburtstag, Unter dem Pflaster liegt der Strand 11. Berlin: Karin Kramer.
Nitschke, August 1975: Kunst und Verhalten. Analoge Konfigurationen. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog
Sloterdijk, Peter 1998/2004: Sphären. Plurale Sphärologie. Vols.1-3, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.