The article is the first installment in the series reconstructing the history of the idea of civilization seen as process and discussing its usefulness for contemporary civilizational studies. The first part of the text analyzes two roots of the term using the latin words civilitas and civitias. After pointing out ancient antecedents of the notion of civilization, the article analyzes in detail the civilizational discourse of the Enlightenment, emphasizing Victor de Mirabeau’s and Immanuel Kant’s contributions. This leads to the conclusion that civilization can on the most general level be defined as refinement of society by ordering it by law. In the process of attaining civilization, civil society, understood as a collective bonded by mutual respect and prefering peaceful regulation over violence, becomes the lawgiving subject. Even though civilization, as the cult of good manners, can become an empty formalism, mutual courtesy and respect are still necessary conditions for civil society’s existence. If we understand the process of civilization along such lines, it remains worthy of consant research, especially comparative studies, today.

At the end of the 20th century, in response to catastrophic environmental pollution and the failure of recovery efforts, the Chinese authorities looked for a model that could serve as an ideological framework for effective, comprehensive actions to protect nature and maintain economic growth – one of the most important goals of the CCP’s policy since the late 1970s. A theoretical and political framework known as „ecological civilization” (shengtai wenming) was developed in response to this desire. As its name implies, this idea integrates ecological discourse with civilizational discourse, situating environmental conservation in the broader context of China’s long-standing heritage and civilizational mission. The idea has also been given a political component, resulting in a globally unique environmental protection program, based on technological and economic development, as well as rooted in classical culture and reliant on an effective central government. The purpose of this article is to highlight the most significant sources of inspiration that shaped the idea of ecological civilisation and to define the fundamental tenets that underpin it.

The article, inspired by the “new wave” of civilizational studies, focuses on a sphere that usually remains outside the mainstream of civilizational research: cinema. The main aim of the article is to show that the analysis of film works can be a valuable source of knowledge about the civilizational identity promoted by the political and cultural elite. This complements approaches that focus on ways to use the term “civilization” in political, academic, or media discourses, or to look for data on the “civilizational identity” of specific societies through quantitative surveys. The case analyzed in the article is the historical film Kruty 1918, generously financed by the Ukrainian state, which was released in January 2019. The studies focused on how the film expresses the “European choice” of Ukraine and how it creates specific images of the Ukrainian nation and its civilizational affiliation.

This article presents the issue of multiplicity and variety of beliefs and narratives on flying balls of fire form Central Mexico. Although these beings are frequently referred to as “witches” and considered extremely antisocial, in a region located in the Veracruz State these beings are seen as protectors of the people and guardians of treasures. A microcomparative analysis of the data from my fieldwork and anthropological sources associated with other regions of Central Mexico reveals that the tangled complex of beliefs and narratives associated with flying balls of fire encompasses just as much their prosocial and antisocial functions.

This article comparatively analyzes coronavirus’s perceptions and the spiritual practices from two groups, identified as people who have “no religion” and “with no religious affiliation” in Mexico. The objective is to analyze the overlappings present in the health/illness, spiritual, and wellbeing notions during the pandemic. The study is based on a mixed-methods approach. On the one hand, it gives an account of the quantitative data of Cobire 2020, an online survey conducted during the pandemic, which explored the perception around coronavirus, and the spiritual practices lived by the two groups analyzed. On the other hand, the analysis is complemented with a qualitative perspective over five participants’ experiences that also answered the online survey. This article shows the similarities and differences among the groups analyzed regarding the continuities, adaptations, and meanings that spiritual practices acquire during the health emergency due to coronavirus. We conclude by arguing that the experiences resulting from practices shape notions about health/illness and encourage well-being-seeking behaviors.

This text tries to understand some elements of the Afro-Cuban ontology that of Yoruba origin, through the analysis of patakí (tales/legends) that tell the story of Olokun, the deity of the deep sea. For this, a comparison is carried out, first, between how their cult is manifested in Africa and in Cuba, to then analyze from a phenomenological point of view the patakí that are preserved on the Island. These patakí were collected from fieldwork carried out over several years in some provinces of the central-western region of Cuba. Olokun, in Cuba, is revealed as a representation of deepness, not only marine, but also psychological and a symbol of what is beyond the human, the rational and the understandable.