Norbert Elias's African Processes of Civilisation

In the year 1962, in his age of 65, Norbert Elias decided to go to the University of Accra to get the position of a professor. Some work is already done to shed light about Elias' reasons for this long journey and his activities in Ghana. Until now, litte is published yet about the works he had written about this country. This is strange if one reflects the many discussions about the alleged eurocentrism in his work. Especially the concept of the Civilising Process was the target of several such discussions. In the early 1980s, a couple of (Dutch) ethnologists accused Elias of being an old style evolutionist who suggests that the European development is the most "civilised" in the world. In a serious of books, the German Hans Peter Dürr also tried to show that the "civilising process" is a myth. It is neither linear nor have people in stateless society "uncivilised" manners, a libidineous lifestyle and a violent character. Up to the present time, the discussions about the validity of the work of Norbert Elias does not end.The fact that so less is published about his works concerning Ghana, Africa and pre-modern societies is also strange because there is a lot of material still unnoticed and unpublished. If one goes to the Norbert Elias archive in Marbach am Neckar (Deutsches Literaturarchiv) one can see the richness of this material.This book-project is concerned with both of these reasons. The editors of this book have visited several times the Marbach archive. They have selected a great numbers of unpublished manuscripts and have evaluated their worth for a wider audience. Above all, the editors have contacted experts in the field of Ghanian society and the work of Norbert Elias and have asked them to evaluate the material. In the end, a couple of manuscripts were chosen for this project. Some of these manuscripts have been already edited by the editors in the year 2018. Some other manuscripts still have to be edited carefully.