Department of Anthropology

CONFLICTS IN TIME: RETHINKING ‘CONTEMPORARY’ GLOBALISATION

Seminar Series May 2008 - February 2010

This seminar series brings together sociologists, anthropologists, social geographers, museum specialists, activists and artists in a rethinking of the importance of struggles over time to processes of globalisation. We aim to question the frequent assumption in theories of globalisation that we live within a shared present in which time is experienced in one way and is an abstract container for social action. So far this has obscured the diverse experiences of and social struggles over pasts and futures that make up the present and shape the future of globalisation. Building on an existing cross-institutional discussion group of anthropologists who have worked on issues of temporality and linking together academics in a range of institutions in the UK and Europe, the research seminar series will address several core themes. First, we will uncover the reality of specific current struggles over senses and trajectories of time. Secondly, we will examine the various ways in which social rhythms are now being managed and institutionalised. Thirdly, we will address the complexity of the experiences of the present that vary according to social location, temporal practices and work-place rhythms. Addressing these themes will allow us to track the actually existing shape of the timescapes of globalisation and the unpredictable outcomes of their interactions.

We have identified four key sites for exploring the conflicts in time characteristic of current practices of globalisation each of which will be addressed in turn by the workshop series. These are heritage organizations, planning institutions, social movements and global workplaces. All of these institutions attempt to mediate between economic, political, popular and intimate practices of time. Also they seek to arbitrate and shape the boundary between private and public uses and experiences of time. This focus on institutional sites will allow us to meet our aim of moving beyond the anthropological claim that there are diverse senses of time into an exploration of the political and ethical negotiations between these. In addition we will be able to fulfil our goal of developing the growing argument within social geography that there is no single experience of neo-liberal or globalised time. The focus in the workshop series on comparative studies of these institutions from a range of global contexts will enable us to succeed in bringing the theories and empirical findings of sociologists, anthropologists and social geographers into dialogue with each other in a controlled exercise of interdisciplinary work. From this empirical ground we will formulate a new theoretical model in the final fifth seminar that will examine how several senses of time are lived by one subject and how various temporal practices alter each other at key social sites. At this seminar we will also analyse global trends in the management and politics of time by tracing the borrowing of time-practices between and among these institutions. Overall the research seminar series will aim to create new insights by addressing domains that are not usually theorised together—the culture industries, bureaucracy, activism and labour. In addition it will innovatively aim to bring within one analytical frame time-practices that are oriented towards the past, present and future.

Seminar Series Workshop Themes:

Heritage and the Negotiation of New Futures for the Past
UCL, May 2008

Post-conflict situations have provided a laboratory for international institutions to apply a compassionate neo-liberal model of heritage as a force for reconciliation and potential economic benefit. Yet they also contain a wide range of activist and political groups with quite distinct programmes that also aim to use the past to create new futures. In addition alterations and continuities in the temporalities of labour, kinship and personal memorialisation occur along side and sometimes in spite of these explicit strategies for building a new past. This workshop will explore the interactions and conflicts between intimate, public, international and political reworkings of heritage in Bosnia, Palestine and Sierra Leone.

Social Movements and the Foundation of New Presents
Cambridge, February 2009

This will focus on interventions in the present that attempt to create new times different from the ethics of neo-liberalism. It will explore the various ethical time-practices associated with these social movements. It will examine the new ways they use technology and media forms to manage participation and the effects of these mediums on experiences of community and the public domain. It will trace the attempts of social movements to define the nature of the ‘contemporary’ differently. It will also importantly explore how participants in movements (especially those associated with patient advocacy and environmental groups) seek to mediate between time-practices associated with medical and biological sciences and the experience of individual life.

Planning and the Mediation of the Risk and Chaos of the Future
Edinburgh University, May 2009

This will examine how neo-liberal planning institutions and those affected by them seek to manage and reconcile their various time-practices. It will explore how conflicting projected futures impinge on each other in negotiations between neo-liberal bureaucracies and urban communities. It will address the material ways in which the sensation of the future as a reality is produced in the everyday life of bureaucracies, communities and urban landscapes. It will examine how bureaucracies try to make invisible the chaos of an uncontrollable global future and translate this into a language of risks and opportunities. It will trace to what extent this language transfers into popular movements and intimate experiences. In addition the seminar will explore forms of activism and academic engagement that could alter and offer alternatives to the plans of neo-liberalism.

Global Workplaces and Conflicts in Time-Scales
LSE, December 2009

This will examine globally linked workplaces as sites where the technological, economic, social and individual management of time intersect in unpredictable and conflicting ways. In spite of claims that these workplaces are sites of timeless time where the experience of bio-social and disciplinary time is eroded this seminar will explore emerging contradictory experiences of time as part of the physical practice of labour. It will also address issues of accountability in a global network—how the distant management of work-rhythms according to the profits of international corporations affects the possibility of labour activism. In addition it will seek to trace global trends in the management of work-time associated with increasing night-time work and the informalisation of labour. More broadly, it will examine the social reach of global corporate forms of time-management into the ethics of everyday life in a range of settings.

Rethinking ‘Contemporary’ Globalisation
LSE, February 2010

A workshop composed of the core participants who will have attended all the seminars. At this we will build an overall theoretical perspective based on the previous two years of findings.

For further information please contact Laura Bear (L.Bear@lse.ac.uk) or Stephan Feuchtwang (S.Feuchtwang@lse.ac.uk), network directors.

RESEARCH NETWORK

Dr Laura Bear, LSE
Dr Veronique Benei, LAIOS and LSE
Professor Harriet Evans, University of Westminster
Professor Stephan Feuchtwang, LSE
Professor Olivia Harris, LSE
Dr Eric Hirsch, Brunel University
Professor Michael Lambek, LSE and University of Toronto
Professor Doreen Massey, Open University
Professor Mike Rowlands, UCL
Dr Michael Scott, LSE

SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS (more to be announced later):

Dr Catherine Alexander, Goldsmiths
Dr Simone Abram, University of Sheffield
Professor Barbara Adam, Cardiff
Dr Paul Basu, Sussex
Dr Richard Baxstrom, University of Edinburgh
Dr Eeva Berglund
Dr Sharad Chari, L.S.E.
Kimberly Chong, L.S.E.
Dr Geert De Neve, Sussex
Dr Rebecca Empson, Cambridge
Dr Matthew Engelke, L.S.E.
Cathy Haynes, Goldsmiths, artists network
Dr Casey High, Goldsmiths
Professor David Hobbs, L.S.E
Dr Matt Hodges, Goldsmiths
Michael Hoffman, LSE
Dr Deborah James LSE
Dr Anouska Komlosy, Queens University
Dr Sian Lazar, Cambridge
Professor David Mosse, SOAS
Professor Ton Otto, Aarhus
Dr Johan Rasanayagam, Aberdeen
Dr Dennis Rodgers, Manchester University
Dr Ananya Roy UC-Berkeley
Dr Trevor Stack, Aberdeen
Dr Robert Storrie, British Museum
Professor Nick Thomas, University of Cambridge
Professor Sarah Franklin, L.S.E
Professor Saskia Sassen, L.S.E
Professor David Simon, Royal Holloway
Professor Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge
Hans Steinmuller, L.S.E.

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