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Summary

This chapter addresses key sociological concepts developed through the research and writing of German sociologist Norbert Elias. While often overlooked as a significant modern theorist, Elias’s work not only pre-dated and predicted, but also drew together and synthesized, such major theoretical streams from twentieth-century sociology as social constructionism, structuration, dramaturgy, actor networks, coevolutionary models, biopower, habitus and discourse analytics. In this chapter, I focus on two central concepts in Eliasian sociology, civilizing processes and mimesis, as a vehicle for unpacking and understanding the applicability of figurational sociology to the study of Parkour in Canada.