Significance of the project
Methods of sensing, experiencing and evaluation of time are a crucial issue in the context of cultural anthropology (Gell 1992). The project is a part of the fundamental discussion on the current state of culture and position of contemporary people. Proposed research of cultural practices of time management will allow to improve knowledge on the social life temporal order characteristic for the culture of liquid modernity (Bauman 2000). The project will help to know basic characteristics and rules according to which this culture is changing. The analysis of transformations in time perception is leading us to understand its current role and uncover crucial phenomena of the contemporary society (Tarkowska 1992).
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The results of the proposed analysis will also represent attitudes and approach with reference to time management techniques, namely ways of affirmation or contestation of neoliberal discourses related to human temporality. I am interested, if certain actors try to disobey against the dominating discourse and whether they work out resistance strategies against power relations or become subjected to time regimes. Cultural practices of time management subdue subjects transforming them in the way making them feel a need to realize things they are expected to do. Knowledge provided at time managements trainings can be analyzed only in the context of competences, however individuals that learn it can be also aware of its entanglement into power procedures (Kochanowski 2007).
Most phenomena occurring within the society are temporal, especially occurrence of new phenomena (such as off-site work and informative and communications technologies) has influence on transformations of temporal organization of daily life. Social consequences of off-site work, being the form typical for neoliberalism, is greater comfort, when it comes to possession and planning of time, on one hand and pressure and problems with time management related to merging labour and leisure zones on the other one (Hochschild 1997). The neoliberal labour style is oriented on reaching goals, prioritization of tasks and efficient merging of leisure and labour zones. This is supported by various technologies and devices, like ICT technologies, computers, mobile devices, mobile phones, applications and planners (Gądecki 2017). The growing range of accessible time management tools and techniques points out there is need to enhance knowledge on cultural practices we encounter as a result of the expanding neoliberal idea.
Proposed research describe issues of social time and cultural practices in the innovative way. From the cultural anthropology point of view, in which it is important to perform ethnographic field research and produce results of qualitative research, it seems crucial to know experience of certain social actors using methods of labour organization. Previous scientific research on time focused mostly on historical analyses (Guriewicz 1972; Le Goff 1988b). While, indeed, historical analysis is necessary to understand the sources of contemporary practices of time management, such perspective presented only limited picture of the phenomenon. Historical research present mostly general ideas that, though linking the issue of social time with the economic value and the neoliberal ideology, do not offer the deepened analysis of qualitative (Alverson 2001; Sharp 1981). Many papers on social time still lack the attitude linking the cultural anthropology perspective with the qualitative analysis of changes that occurred as a result of development of the neoliberal ideology. This project is innovative as it also refers to economic and technological issues that cannot be separated from cultural practices of time management
Development of the idea of social time
Research results will help to develop the theory of social time, that includes a cultural idea of time characteristic for a certain territory. Each society has its own social time being a unique pattern of bahaviour and social practices (Sorokin & Merton1937). Time is a category that is socially constructed and historically and culturally diversified. It reflects human awareness, but it also cannot be separated from rhythms of social life. From the socio-cultural anthropology point of view time is understood as a social construct being created in the process of interaction between community members and in such context it is a foundation rule organizing cultural diversities. In collective life time serves as a integrating, regulating and communicating factor (Borowiec 2013: 117; Geertz 2005). It is also a phenomenon that directs actions and organizes communities in many fields. Such understood time is not of quantitative, but rather of qualitative kind. (Strzelecka 2017a).
Though Augustine of Hippo wrote about elusiveness and ambiguity of category of time conceived in human mind (St. Augustine of Hippo 1912, Book XI, 14), contemporary sociological, psychological and anthropological concepts improve the definition of social time by means of temporal orientations (Zimbardo, Boyd 2008; Nosal, Bajcar 2004), cultural patterns of temporal behaviour (Hall 1984; Levine 2008), spatial time representations (Tarkowska 1992: 23) and temporal metaphors (Sobol 2002) embedded in a specific cultural reality, in which individuals communicate in the same language (Whorf 1982).
In this project the research perspective is situated within the socio-cultural study of time and temporal turn that has been present in social sciences and humanities in the 1990s (Hassan 2010). The intellectual frames of temporal turn are an attempt to reorganize humanities and they determine new fields of research and different research contexts (Strzelecka 2017b). This trend, embedded in the context of global capitalism, provides the new approach to temporal aspects of technological and informative breakthrough. Researchers working in the field of temporal turn appreciate significance of social time, when describing and interpreting phenomena emerging from the innovative world of postmodernism.
Final results of research will redefine the term of labour and leisure times and improve knowledge on the concept of social time in the neoliberal age. The analysis of new technologies with reference to time management will allow to present the construct of time that is characteristic for our cultural area. Knowledge of the neoliberal attitude to time can contribute to understanding significance of basic characteristics of culture and the defined set of its regularities (Pawełczyńska 1986: 121).
Division of social time
The project aims to defamiliarize understanding of clock time as something natural, making it the anthropological tool of the cultural critic (Marcus, Fisher 1999). Ambiguity of ways time can be define with is proven by the phenomenon of growing significance of time in the context of money value and credit mechanisms (Guriewicz 1972; Le Goff 1988a). The phenomenon of precise measurement and saving of time occurred together with the production-related character of the industrial civilization. As a construct typical for the Western culture and thanks to its economic and technical successes, clock time managed to reign over almost all aspects of life in the contemporary world (Adam 2004). Time became a priceless value itself, the main factor determining social life, ‘the separate institution the modern society would lose its foundation without’ (Horonziak 2014: 110). Significance of temporal arrangement and coordination started to be something obvious and undiscussable. Defamiliarization of time, as an anthropology practice, is based on the rule of ‘isolation of known things and making them extraordinary, (…) i.e. defining a research area in order to make it meet the anthropological condition of strangeness’ (Kuligowski 2016: 8).
Conducting qualitative research in the context of social time is especially crucial in the current phase of its acceleration and delinearization. Researchers of cultural globalization processes and capitalism create significant terms effectively describing the character of transformations in the contemporary world. Some of them write about time fragmentation (Mikułowski Pomorski 2006), ‘pointillist’ time visualized by means of many dimensionless points (Bauman 2009: 40) and ‘timeless time’ (Castells 2007: 433). Others use the term of ‘multi-temporality’ (Barker 2011) or ‘heterotemporality’ (Hutchings 2008: 4). All these terms express the new quality of time, that occurred at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, however it was the information revolution and technical development, including popularization of communications technologies (mostly telephones, personal computers and the Internet) that resulted in significant changes in social life rhythms and time acceleration (Trybulec 2009).
Current time transformation, perceived and created by social practices ‘under influence of the paradigm informative technologies is one of the foundations of the new society’ (Castells 2007: 429). The result of these inventions is significant shortening of both spatial and temporal distances. The term of ‘time-space compression’ expresses the alternative way for the culture of hurriedness to occur in the social reality (Harvey 1989: 260-283). Adam points out the socio-economic context of this phenomenon: ‘In economic production we managed to achieve time compression in several ways: by intensification of actions conducted in a certain time unit (thanks to usage of machines and enhanced production capabilities of employees), by rearrangement of sequences and methods of task ordering (Taylorism and Fordism), more efficient use of better and worse periods (providing flexibility) and by elimination of time period spent unproductively (system of JIT production, deliveries and consumption). Time compression is an undisputed economic and political goal as it increases the profit level and has positive impact on the gross domestic product (GDP)’ (Adam 2004: 150-151).
These transformations are often found as unintended and unforeseen consequences of the modern approach to time, characterized by significant acceleration, focus on future and planning. This leads to the growing role of present incorporating past and future, too. This phenomenon is called the extended present (Nowotny 1994).
On one hand the current transformation of social time is related to the neoliberal ideology perfectly operating in times of hurriedness and immediate access to information, while on the other one multi-temporality, heterotemporality and multiple point arrangement do not help in realization of goals in a systemic, planned and linear way, thus it is conflicted with the neoliberal logic. Neoliberalism helps individuals and social groups to make use of trainings in the field of selfmanagement in time, because they feel they need to be more productive and effective. The need of self-management in time also increased as linearity was replaced with multi-temporality, in which the excessive number of impulses hinders choice of life goals in face of possibilities that surround us.
In the socio-cultural neoliberal reality we witness development of management techniques with reference to other’s and our time, that indicate gradual commodification of time (Truckman 2005). Along with development of the tertiary sector of the economy and banking services the relation between time and money becomes gradually stronger. Time became a product that can be arranged, sold and divided. We witness constant process of time globalization defined as the common homogenous tool to coordinate collective life of more and more populous human and gradually larger areas of the world (Adam 1995). Research of unforeseen consequences of ‘the modern approach to time, characterized with significant acceleration, focus on future and planning’ (Tarkowska 2010) is particularly crucial during transformations occurring in the age of globalization and neoliberalism. Time is an extremely important interdisciplinary issue linking social and economic sciences.
The analysis of empirical data on cultural practices of time management will improve knowledge on attempts to subdue the phenomenon of social time division in the contemporary society. Time of human life has become divided, it has disintegrated into thousands of elements being our possibilities and information available on a day-to-day basis (Eriksen 2003), however individuals are not able to experience all available lifestyles. The neoliberal logic orders to pursue the maximum usage of time in order to enhance of economic efficiency (performing several activities at a time), however individuals are constantly forced to make choices, while time management trainings are supposed to help them to make these ‘good’ ones. The possibility of unlimited consumption (on the condition of monies accumulation) is not compatible with experience of lack of time. Development of the new type of the capitalistic society resulted in the feeling of shrinking time or even its utter lack. Time, that became undetectable for common, temporal findings, had influence on creating a social fear and feeling of uncertainty. ‘Facing rapid changes and constant feeling of «movement», people can feel losing their ground, when all that has had any meaning until now is ceasing to have any meaning at all’ (Horonziak 2014: 107). Inability to reign over time disturbs the order of reality in an individual and disorients them (Kopka 2012).
Most phenomena occurring within the society are temporal, especially occurrence of new phenomena (such as off-site work and informative and communications technologies) has influence on transformations of temporal organization of daily life. Social consequences of off-site work, being the form typical for neoliberalism, is greater comfort, when it comes to possession and planning of time, on one hand and pressure and problems with time management related to merging labour and leisure zones on the other one (Hochschild 1997). The neoliberal labour style is oriented on reaching goals, prioritization of tasks and efficient merging of leisure and labour zones. This is supported by various technologies and devices, like ICT technologies, computers, mobile devices, mobile phones, applications and planners (Gądecki 2017). The growing range of accessible time management tools and techniques points out there is need to enhance knowledge on cultural practices we encounter as a result of the expanding neoliberal idea.
Proposed research describe issues of social time and cultural practices in the innovative way. From the cultural anthropology point of view, in which it is important to perform ethnographic field research and produce results of qualitative research, it seems crucial to know experience of certain social actors using methods of labour organization. Previous scientific research on time focused mostly on historical analyses (Guriewicz 1972; Le Goff 1988b). While, indeed, historical analysis is necessary to understand the sources of contemporary practices of time management, such perspective presented only limited picture of the phenomenon. Historical research present mostly general ideas that, though linking the issue of social time with the economic value and the neoliberal ideology, do not offer the deepened analysis of qualitative (Alverson 2001; Sharp 1981). Many papers on social time still lack the attitude linking the cultural anthropology perspective with the qualitative analysis of changes that occurred as a result of development of the neoliberal ideology. This project is innovative as it also refers to economic and technological issues that cannot be separated from cultural practices of time management
Development of the idea of social time
Research results will help to develop the theory of social time, that includes a cultural idea of time characteristic for a certain territory. Each society has its own social time being a unique pattern of bahaviour and social practices (Sorokin & Merton1937). Time is a category that is socially constructed and historically and culturally diversified. It reflects human awareness, but it also cannot be separated from rhythms of social life. From the socio-cultural anthropology point of view time is understood as a social construct being created in the process of interaction between community members and in such context it is a foundation rule organizing cultural diversities. In collective life time serves as a integrating, regulating and communicating factor (Borowiec 2013: 117; Geertz 2005). It is also a phenomenon that directs actions and organizes communities in many fields. Such understood time is not of quantitative, but rather of qualitative kind. (Strzelecka 2017a).
Though Augustine of Hippo wrote about elusiveness and ambiguity of category of time conceived in human mind (St. Augustine of Hippo 1912, Book XI, 14), contemporary sociological, psychological and anthropological concepts improve the definition of social time by means of temporal orientations (Zimbardo, Boyd 2008; Nosal, Bajcar 2004), cultural patterns of temporal behaviour (Hall 1984; Levine 2008), spatial time representations (Tarkowska 1992: 23) and temporal metaphors (Sobol 2002) embedded in a specific cultural reality, in which individuals communicate in the same language (Whorf 1982).
In this project the research perspective is situated within the socio-cultural study of time and temporal turn that has been present in social sciences and humanities in the 1990s (Hassan 2010). The intellectual frames of temporal turn are an attempt to reorganize humanities and they determine new fields of research and different research contexts (Strzelecka 2017b). This trend, embedded in the context of global capitalism, provides the new approach to temporal aspects of technological and informative breakthrough. Researchers working in the field of temporal turn appreciate significance of social time, when describing and interpreting phenomena emerging from the innovative world of postmodernism.
Final results of research will redefine the term of labour and leisure times and improve knowledge on the concept of social time in the neoliberal age. The analysis of new technologies with reference to time management will allow to present the construct of time that is characteristic for our cultural area. Knowledge of the neoliberal attitude to time can contribute to understanding significance of basic characteristics of culture and the defined set of its regularities (Pawełczyńska 1986: 121).
Division of social time
The project aims to defamiliarize understanding of clock time as something natural, making it the anthropological tool of the cultural critic (Marcus, Fisher 1999). Ambiguity of ways time can be define with is proven by the phenomenon of growing significance of time in the context of money value and credit mechanisms (Guriewicz 1972; Le Goff 1988a). The phenomenon of precise measurement and saving of time occurred together with the production-related character of the industrial civilization. As a construct typical for the Western culture and thanks to its economic and technical successes, clock time managed to reign over almost all aspects of life in the contemporary world (Adam 2004). Time became a priceless value itself, the main factor determining social life, ‘the separate institution the modern society would lose its foundation without’ (Horonziak 2014: 110). Significance of temporal arrangement and coordination started to be something obvious and undiscussable. Defamiliarization of time, as an anthropology practice, is based on the rule of ‘isolation of known things and making them extraordinary, (…) i.e. defining a research area in order to make it meet the anthropological condition of strangeness’ (Kuligowski 2016: 8).
Conducting qualitative research in the context of social time is especially crucial in the current phase of its acceleration and delinearization. Researchers of cultural globalization processes and capitalism create significant terms effectively describing the character of transformations in the contemporary world. Some of them write about time fragmentation (Mikułowski Pomorski 2006), ‘pointillist’ time visualized by means of many dimensionless points (Bauman 2009: 40) and ‘timeless time’ (Castells 2007: 433). Others use the term of ‘multi-temporality’ (Barker 2011) or ‘heterotemporality’ (Hutchings 2008: 4). All these terms express the new quality of time, that occurred at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, however it was the information revolution and technical development, including popularization of communications technologies (mostly telephones, personal computers and the Internet) that resulted in significant changes in social life rhythms and time acceleration (Trybulec 2009).
Current time transformation, perceived and created by social practices ‘under influence of the paradigm informative technologies is one of the foundations of the new society’ (Castells 2007: 429). The result of these inventions is significant shortening of both spatial and temporal distances. The term of ‘time-space compression’ expresses the alternative way for the culture of hurriedness to occur in the social reality (Harvey 1989: 260-283). Adam points out the socio-economic context of this phenomenon: ‘In economic production we managed to achieve time compression in several ways: by intensification of actions conducted in a certain time unit (thanks to usage of machines and enhanced production capabilities of employees), by rearrangement of sequences and methods of task ordering (Taylorism and Fordism), more efficient use of better and worse periods (providing flexibility) and by elimination of time period spent unproductively (system of JIT production, deliveries and consumption). Time compression is an undisputed economic and political goal as it increases the profit level and has positive impact on the gross domestic product (GDP)’ (Adam 2004: 150-151).
These transformations are often found as unintended and unforeseen consequences of the modern approach to time, characterized by significant acceleration, focus on future and planning. This leads to the growing role of present incorporating past and future, too. This phenomenon is called the extended present (Nowotny 1994).
On one hand the current transformation of social time is related to the neoliberal ideology perfectly operating in times of hurriedness and immediate access to information, while on the other one multi-temporality, heterotemporality and multiple point arrangement do not help in realization of goals in a systemic, planned and linear way, thus it is conflicted with the neoliberal logic. Neoliberalism helps individuals and social groups to make use of trainings in the field of selfmanagement in time, because they feel they need to be more productive and effective. The need of self-management in time also increased as linearity was replaced with multi-temporality, in which the excessive number of impulses hinders choice of life goals in face of possibilities that surround us.
In the socio-cultural neoliberal reality we witness development of management techniques with reference to other’s and our time, that indicate gradual commodification of time (Truckman 2005). Along with development of the tertiary sector of the economy and banking services the relation between time and money becomes gradually stronger. Time became a product that can be arranged, sold and divided. We witness constant process of time globalization defined as the common homogenous tool to coordinate collective life of more and more populous human and gradually larger areas of the world (Adam 1995). Research of unforeseen consequences of ‘the modern approach to time, characterized with significant acceleration, focus on future and planning’ (Tarkowska 2010) is particularly crucial during transformations occurring in the age of globalization and neoliberalism. Time is an extremely important interdisciplinary issue linking social and economic sciences.
The analysis of empirical data on cultural practices of time management will improve knowledge on attempts to subdue the phenomenon of social time division in the contemporary society. Time of human life has become divided, it has disintegrated into thousands of elements being our possibilities and information available on a day-to-day basis (Eriksen 2003), however individuals are not able to experience all available lifestyles. The neoliberal logic orders to pursue the maximum usage of time in order to enhance of economic efficiency (performing several activities at a time), however individuals are constantly forced to make choices, while time management trainings are supposed to help them to make these ‘good’ ones. The possibility of unlimited consumption (on the condition of monies accumulation) is not compatible with experience of lack of time. Development of the new type of the capitalistic society resulted in the feeling of shrinking time or even its utter lack. Time, that became undetectable for common, temporal findings, had influence on creating a social fear and feeling of uncertainty. ‘Facing rapid changes and constant feeling of «movement», people can feel losing their ground, when all that has had any meaning until now is ceasing to have any meaning at all’ (Horonziak 2014: 107). Inability to reign over time disturbs the order of reality in an individual and disorients them (Kopka 2012).