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Configurational analysis


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.

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 “ ”. 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.

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". Bachelard’s approach became later a source of inspiration for Michel Foucault.


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