Jump
to content [s]

Jump
to site navigation [0]

Jump
to search [4]

Terms and
conditions [8]

Sign
in

Register

Mobile
version

Text larger

smaller

Search: guardian.co.uk Education Web

News

Sport

Comment

Culture

Business

Money

Life
& style

Travel

Environment

Blogs

Video

Jobs

A-Z

News

Education

Improbable
research

Series: Improbable
research

Previous
| Index

Err ... your shoelace is untied

Marc
Abrahams

The
Guardian, Tuesday 21 April 2009

Details about the late Norbert Elias's international untied-shoelace
experiments were difficult to track down. But Ingo Mörth found them.

Mörth, a professor at the Johannes Kepler Universität in Linz, Austria, broke
the news in an article called "The shoelace breaching experiment", published in
the June 2007 issue of Figurations: Newsletter of the Norbert Elias
Foundation.

"Norbert Elias started a series of breaching experiments, beginning ad hoc,
and ending in various situations in Spain, France, England, Germany and
Switzerland. He strolled around in all these contexts with intentionally untied
and trailing shoelaces."

Elias had an eminent career as a sociologist, beginning in Germany in the
1930s. After retiring as a reader at the University of Leicester in 1964, he
went a-wandering, doing sociological research as a byproduct
of his tourism.

In the Spanish fishing village of Torremolinos in 1965, giggling girls
spurred him to realise that his left shoelace "was untied and trailing". Mörth
describes the magic that resulted.

"By retying the loose shoelace, Elias had the feeling of being included in
the village community - at least for a moment, and based on the community aspect
of the everyday reality in the village, people took notice and nodded approval
of his rectifying something that had a disturbing appearance."

Elias thereupon began his experiments, strolling across Europe with
deliberately untied shoelaces.

In England "mostly elderly gentlemen reacted by communicating with me on the
danger of stumbling and falling". In Germany "older men only looked at me
somewhat contemptuously, whereas women reacted directly and tried to 'clean up'
the obvious disorder, on the tram as well as elsewhere".

Elias and his laces thus pioneered - though the academic world mostly failed
to celebrate him and them for it - what are now known as "breaching
experiments". American sociologist Harold Garfinkel coined the term and rose to
fame by conducting a series of such activities. As Mörth explains, these
experiments "breached the taken-for-granted assumptions underlying everyday
situations, thereby generating consternation and embarrassment among other
people present".

Elias's many fans in the Norbert Elias Foundation and elsewhere were aware
that he had done something with shoelaces, but because Elias did not publish a
formal academic study, most did not know that they could read a firsthand
account of what, where and when he did it.

Thanks to Mörth, scholars can now learn that Elias's historic report was
published in the German weekly magazine Die Zeit in November 1997, in the travel
section, under the headline Die Geschichte mit den Schuhbändern (The story of
the shoelaces).

In publicising the existence of Elias's original account, Mörth flung open a
door through which researchers had, for 40 years, thought themselves restricted
to only a squinting glance. Complete text of the Die Zeit article can be found,
in the original German, at hyperelias.jku.at.

(Thanks to Bella Plouffe for bringing this to my attention.)

• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and
organiser of the Ig Nobel prize

Printable
version

Send
to a friend

Share

Clip

Contact
us

larger | smaller

Email
Close

Recipient's email address

Your first name

Your surname

Add a note (optional)

Your IP address will be logged

Share
Close

Digg

reddit

Google Bookmarks

Yahoo! My Web

del.icio.us

StumbleUpon

Newsvine

livejournal

Facebook

BlinkList

Contact us
Close

Contact the Education editor
education.editor@
guardianunlimited.co.uk

Report errors or inaccuracies: [email-masked]

Letters for publication should be sent to: [email-masked]

If you need help using the site: [email-masked]

Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard:
+44 (0)20 3353
2000

Advertising guide

License/buy our
content

Education

Research
·

Higher
education

Science

Psychology

Series

Improbable
research

Printable
version

Send
to a friend

Share

Clip

Contact
us

Article
history

Email
Close

Recipient's email address

Your first name

Your surname

Add a note (optional)

Your IP address will be logged

Share
Close

Digg

reddit

Google Bookmarks

Yahoo! My Web

del.icio.us

StumbleUpon

Newsvine

livejournal

Facebook

BlinkList

Contact us
Close

Contact the Education editor
education.editor@
guardianunlimited.co.uk

Report errors or inaccuracies: [email-masked]

Letters for publication should be sent to: [email-masked]

If you need help using the site: [email-masked]

Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard:
+44 (0)20 3353
2000

Advertising guide

License/buy our
content

About this article
Close

Improbable research: Marc Abrahams on the late Norbert Elias's
untied-shoelace experiments
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk
at 00.01 BST on Tuesday 21 April 2009. It appeared in the
Guardian on Tuesday
21 April 2009 on p12 of the Education
news & features section. It was last updated at 13.21 BST on Wednesday
22 April 2009.

UK

USA

UK

Browse
more education jobs

Essentials
of Selling

guardian online courses. home study. unspecified.

****ENGLISH
TEACHERS URGENTLY NEEDED - HERTFORDSHI…

protocol education. required for april 2009, a well qualified, enthusi….
Competitive.

Head
of Early Years and Childcare Service

cambridgeshire county council. castle court, cambridge. £50,254 -
£68,376 (pay award pending).

USA

Browse
more education jobs

Inside
Sales Rep - Online Higher Education

higher education to the communities we serve
education management corporation (www.edmc.com) is among the largest providers
of private post–secondary education... . az.

CLINICAL
SKILLS LAB - Education

bachelor's degree in nursing; msn preferred; four
years of current exp. de rn license. current cert. as a health care provider.
- 0. de.

Nuclear
Education Research Analyst

technology nuclear education research analyst jn...
development. required education: ? masters degree with professional military
education or a terminal... . al.

Find that job

Upload CV

Career
videos

Careers
advice

Career
forums

Most viewed on guardian.co.uk

24
hours

7
days

Most
talked about

24 hours

1. Swine flu
death toll exceeds 100 as pandemic fears grow

2. Revolutionary
Espresso Book Machine launches in London

3. Southampton
will fold in eight days without a buyer

4. ITV
misses out as Susan Boyle conquers web

5. Bafta
fashion: outfits from the TV awards red carpet

More
top stories

7 days

1. Stuart
Jeffries talks to Charla Muller who offered her husband sex every night for a
year and wrote a book about it

2. Model
row as Australia's Miss Universe contestant branded 'too thin'

3. ITV
misses out as Susan Boyle conquers web

4. Revolutionary
Espresso Book Machine launches in London

5. Swine flu
symptoms similar to those of human flu

More
top stories

Most talked about
<ol>
{for blog_item in blogs}
<li{if blog_item_index == (blogs.length - 1)} class="last"
{elseif blog_item_index == 0} class="first"
{/if}>
<span class="rank">${parseInt(blog_item_index) + 1}.</span>
<p>
<a href="${blog_item.link.linkhref}"> ${blog_item.article.title} </a>
<b><a href="http://technorati.com/search/${blog_item.link.linkhref}?partnerid=440">(${blog_item.linkcount}{if blog_item_index == 0} technorati links{/if})</a></b>
</p>
</li>
{/for}
</ol>

Loading …

More

Today's
rising blog posts from

Recruiting now

Sponsored features

Free P&P at the Guardian bookshop

Panic
Nation

£7.99 with free UK delivery

God
Delusion

£8.99 with free UK delivery

Browse
the bestseller lists

Buy books from the
Guardian Bookshop

More from Improbable
research

Previous:

14 Apr 2009: Improbable
research: Where there's a quill, there's a way

Improbable
research index

Related information

Education

Research
·

Higher
education

Science

Psychology

Series

Improbable
research

Gaza:
Nursing the nightmares

9 Mar 2009:

Insherrah Zakout, one of Gaza's few psychotherapists, helps women caught in
the shelling of Gaza to free themselves from the trauma of the attacks

More
video

10 Jul 2008

Music
that brings a tear to the eye

17 Jan 2007

How
to become more attractive

26 Aug 2006

Johnjoe
McFadden: The conscious mind isn't much use in making hard decisions

9 Sep 2005

Your
20s - a golden decade for memories

Shocking
Science 2008

18 Dec 2008:

Over the past 12 months the world of science has provided a bumper crop of
bizarre and scary revelations

More
galleries

License/buy
our content |

Privacy
policy |

Terms
& conditions |

Advertising
guide |

Accessibility
|

A-Z
index |

Inside
guardian.co.uk blog |

About
guardian.co.uk |

Join
our dating site today

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Go to: guardian.co.uk home UK news World news Comment is free
blog Newsblog Sport blog Arts &
Entertainment blog Audio & podcasts In pictures Video Archive search Arts & entertainment
Books Business EducationGuardian.co.uk
Environment
Film Football Jobs Katine appeal Life & style MediaGuardian.co.uk Money Music The Observer Politics Science Shopping
SocietyGuardian.co.uk
Sport Talk
Technology Travel Been there Email
services Special reports
The Guardian
The Northerner
The Wrap
Advertising
guide Compare
finance products Crossword
Events /
offers Feedback
Garden
centre GNM Press
Office Graduate
Bookshop
Guardian
Ecostore Guardian Films
Headline
service Help /
contacts Information
Living
our values Newsroom
Notes
& Queries Reader
Offers Readers'
editor Soulmates dating
Style guide
Syndication
services Travel offers
TV
listings Weather Working for
us Guardian
Weekly Public
Learn Guardian
back issues Observer
back issues Guardian
Professional