Policies of inversion. Students riots as civilizing processes in Chile

Paper tries to reach two main objectives. The first one consists in a practical application of Norbert Elias’ Civilizing Theory (1993 [1939]; 1990) based on contention social movements analysis, specifically two of them deployed in Chile during May-June 2006 and during 2011, which were leaded by high school and university students, which have had unexpected and critical consequences to democratic institutional design of Chilean society. Simultaneously as second objective, paper discusses a formal contribution to Civilizing Theory and in order to outline theoretical and methodological tools, which fit with empirical observations of figurations, about its course and development. Starting on that synthesis, paper investigates on perspectives of formal comprehension of evolution processes of societies, on which inversion as a sort of figuration capable of beginning to see unforeseen possible worlds through shared interests, plays a core role as social evolution forerunner.