ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a conception of the stranger by drawing upon Norbert Elias’s figurational approach to social analysis. The single individual does not operate psychologically independently of others in society. All humans are interdependent on each other and therefore all of us are potentially vulnerable. Elias explored how over the course of history people developed a more consistently regulated sense of self and a greater sense of social interdependency rooted in practice. These changes in the individual psyche are reflected in our attitudes to violence, greater desire for self-restraint, control of the body in public places and manners that Elias identifies as the civilizing process. The stranger is a person who is seen to be potentially disconnected from the broad sweep of civilizing tendencies. In Elias’s terms the stranger is not bonded, segmented, is outside of incorporation and may not accept forms of civilized conduct that the rest of us take for granted. The stranger is viewed as distinct and separate from the ‘we’ group.
