Objective
The project elaborates on the problem of social time defined as the hidden system of social, cultural and personal life (Hall 1984) also known as the ‘deep structure’ (Pawełczyńska 1986: 121). The matter of social time perception, for the first time discussed by Émile Durkheim (2001), is the most important research problem in this project. The main subject of analysis during the planned research project are mechanisms of construction of neoliberal social entities temporality by means of cultural practices of time management. The main research problem has been put in the context of the social theory of time and defined in the form of two complementary openended questions: How do cultural practices of time management construct experience of time perception in neoliberal social entities? Which specific cultural practices of time management have influence on experiencing temporality in neoliberal objects?
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I define temporality as issues related to the way of experiencing and perception of time by individuals, cultural concepts of time and social patterns regulating dynamics of daily and institutional life (Tarkowska 1992: 25), while when I mention choreography of temporality, I mean time as a tool used to organize social life. The category of time is one of basic forms we use to create, shape and order our daily lives (Banaszczyk 1981: 9). Moreover, time is a significant tool used in research on management, when trying to attempt to regulate and control time. The word ‘choreography’ that was used in the project title refers to processes of arrangement, development, design and control of time within social reality (Adam 2002). Thus, choreography of temporality is the action performed by social entities to transform schedules of their lives in the context of social life. Such actions include cultural practices of time management, that individuals experience and use to organize their lives (Zerubavel 1981).
In this project I focus on how social actors arrange their own temporality by means of cultural practices of time management. Finding an answer to this research problem requires to determine specific objectives:
1. The first one refers to acquire knowledge on how cultural practices of time management, used by social actors, are related to contemporary economy, thus what the role of time in management is. Implementation of such a defined task will allow us to improve the perspective of economic anthropology (Hann, Hart 2015).
2. The second objective has been determined from the perspective of neoliberal anthropology (Burszta, Jezierski, Rauszer 2016) and it refers to identification of elements of social time systemic redistribution, namely methods of creating time balances depending on a type of activities, occupation, education, sex and age (Nowotny 2005). This objective will be achieved by analyzing experiences of certain individuals, related to division into labour time and free time in the context of deregulation and flexibility of these elements in neoliberal times.
3. The last objective is to determine features of temporal organization of daily life, resulting from implementation of cultural practices of time management. Realization of this objective will improve the perspective of time anthropology (Gell 1992; 1992). Knowing cultural practices of time management will uncover social patterns of temporality actions that can be noticed especially in schedules of daily life, partially imposed on an individual and being used to construct social entities (Gosden 1994: 144-146).
Thus, the project objective is to analyze attitudes of certain social entities with reference to techniques of time management and how individuals affirm or reject neoliberal discourses related to human temporality. The additional objective is to determine, in what situations neoliberal temporal rhetoric is contested and what the attempts to go beyond the neoliberal discourse are [Dwojnych 2016]. By reaching the project objectives the theory on contemporary ‘time regimes’ will be supplemented and improved (Pickering 2004; Sabelis 2007). Obtained knowledge on methods of experiencing time and social standards of choreography of temporality will make it possible to review the socio-temporal order present in neoliberalism (Zerubavel 1979: 107).
The main theoretical approach, in which I place experiencing of time by social actors I research is the theory of Michel Foucault, describing ways of control over temporality of certain individuals and social groups in the form of the pressure strategy, technologies of power and disciplinary mechanisms (Foucault 1995). The main term used in the project is discipline being microphysics of power ‘making an individual be subject to disciplinary mechanisms of state power’. This power ‘has influence not only on freedom of speech and thinking, but also on who one can be’ [Burzyńska, Markowski 2006: 535]. Foucault defined time sense as the intentional products of a state administration, whose major, if not exclusive, function is to assure that discipline reigns over society as a whole (Foucault 1995: 216). According to the French philosopher, one of state power characteristics is enforcement of time regimes. Pressure is so strong that in some moment the enforced time definitions become finally internalized to such extent that external pressure is not needed anymore, because individuals watch themselves and impose time regimes created by authorities on themselves.
The assumed research project is based on two complementary approaches. On one hand cultural practices of time management can be seen as tools helpful in synchronization and coordination of different schedules of social life, related to variety of social times created by each social class, each group and each micro social element (Gurvitch 1990). However, it should be considered that the need to integrate and normalize various schedules leads to creation of a time ladder specific for a certain culture and depending on a method of harmonization of social time variety analogical to heterogeneity of groups functioning within the society. On the other hand systemic attempts to reach standardization is not equal in all social groups. Various practices related to time management are sometimes understood as oppressive tools shaping temporality of certain objects. The social mechanism of social time redistribution leads to enhancement or reduction of social inequalities. Diversification of the society can be seen in some people complaining about lack of time, while others wondering what to do with too large amount of it (Denek 2006). With reference to both aspects researchers mention domination of the temporality context and thorough control of individual’s body, going hand in hand with the criteria of efficiency and usability of social entities, assessed in the context of neoliberal values (Beck, Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Nowotny 2005; Gądecki 2017).
Cultural practices of time management could be named disciplines constituting methods allowing to perform ‘thorough control of body activities’ and providing continuous ‘subjection of its forces’ [Foucault 1995: 137]. Subjected temporality of individuals make them be more efficient, more effective and more profit-oriented objects that preserve in themselves and reproduce the neoliberal discourse in social practice, as well as they maintain the innovative system of control and domination supported by the mechanism of disciplines. They are power techniques, by means of which it is possible to have influence on bodies ‘not only so they may do what one wishes, but so they may operate as one wishes’ [Foucault 1995: 138]. According to the French philosopher, ‘discipline produces […] subjected and practiced bodies, «docile» bodies [Foucault 1995: 138]. It can be seen in collegia, elementary schools, hospitals, barracks or factories, in general in detailed arrangement of day-to-day activities that were governed by regulations. Foucault calls a discipline political anatomy of detail [Foucault 1995: 137]. Control of an individual body is used to enhance productivity that became a dominant value highly generated by capitalism. Cultural practices of time management are an element of the process of gradual appropriation of our time, including sleep, by the capitalistic logic of efficiency and productivity (Crary 2013).
Realization of assumed objectives will be possible by means of the analysis of practices and contemporary strategies of time management. As I want to get to the subjective experience of social actors, my research is based on the anthropological research axiom, namely ethnography. My approach can be described by means of ethnography of experiencing time by social entities. Research on cultural symptoms of neoliberalism requires using ethnography enabling to reach social practice and providing ‘knowledge on how neoliberalism is expressed in microscales, i.e. in specific socio-political spaces’ (Songin-Mokrzan 2016: 220).
Nowadays, time management is understood as planned and systematical performance of actions leading to reaching a goal (Karwowski 2015: 105), whereas time management trainings are a part of personal development workshops (mentoring, coaching, mental coaching, etc.) that offer assistance in reaching set goals by means of more efficient actions (Wujec 2012). Personal development workshops are oriented to identify areas, in which participants need support to manage their time better; become open-minded for dreams and goals (in compliance with coaching rules saying that goals are dreams with a set deadline to reach); skillful planning; and identification of techniques that an individual can use to implement assumed plans, realize identified goals and work efficiently (Karwowski 2015: 106-113). The idea of this kind of workshops corresponds with such neoliberal values like efficiency, innovativeness and creativity.
Realization of the project will make it possible to analyze social and economical changes occurring in the period of neoliberalism understood as the main political and economical paradigm of contemporary times (Chomsky 1999; Harvey 2008; Pobłocki 2017). Moreover, the project focuses not only on thinking methods, but also on real actions used by individuals to develop their own strategies enabling them to exist in contemporary culture of hurriedness, efficiency, lack of time and overwork (Leccardi 2007). These strategies are used to customize an individual, biologic life rhythm (Klein 2006) to the inconvenient rhythm of social time, imposed by the neoliberal ideology strongly shaping perception of the contemporary world (Crary 2013).
However, in the context of my research as a whole I would be interested not only in the discourse generating definitions individuals use in the process of evaluation of the surrounding world, but also in all types of tools, like modern calendars, portable organizers and smartphone applications, used by individuals for time management. In the Foucault terminology these listed tools are ‘disciplines’, these ‘small things’ used ‘for the control and use of man’ [Foucault 1995: 141]. Though the French philosopher mentioned them in the context of the classical age he defined as lasting from 1650 to 1800, currently we also encounter thorough surveillance over a detail and political use of ‘small things’ used to subject human temporality. Social temporal technicization became an element of contemporary time regimes, a mechanism of power subjecting our bodies to the discipline.
In order to understand how choreography of temporality of social actors is performed, I am also going to make use of the Action Network Theory (ANT) developed by Bruno Latour and assuming existence of agency of both human and non-human objects (Latour 2010). This theory will help to provide enhanced understanding of variety of time management practices that belong to the areas of both nature (adjusted to the natural biological rhythm of a human body under pressure of neoliberal rhetoric) and culture. They are rooted in both social and technological contexts (Latour 2011: 16). Isolated single objects are not included in the ANT scope. These are networks being heterogeneous integers creating results of human being actions. ANT proposes the analysis of culture as the process, in which objects (both human and non-human actors) have the ability to create changes and are enabled to do so by their will to be accepted by certain types of knowledge. While performing my research, I will pay particular attention to the issue of new technologies (smartphone technologies) that are initiating changes linked to how temporal phenomena are perceived and being a result of more and more perceptible blending of leisure and labour to an unprecedented degree (Niehaus 2013). Though these Foucault ‘smart things’ needed to subdue human temporality are most of all seen as a technological innovation, many complementary assets (social, political, economic and cultural) related to methods of organization of labour and leisure time are involved, when using time management applications. The Latour theory allows to observe our perception of time, that we have via technologies and that is organized and created with use of applications, and it can done by obtaining partial reconstruction of socio-technological relations and comprehensive review of phenomena in the fields of power and domination (Latour 2013). ANT transfers non-human elements from the secondary level to the one that is equivalent to the position occupied by human being activities. It changes the way we see social phenomena and processes consisting of a network of knowledge, ideas, technologies, living organisms, things and humans.
In this project I focus on how social actors arrange their own temporality by means of cultural practices of time management. Finding an answer to this research problem requires to determine specific objectives:
1. The first one refers to acquire knowledge on how cultural practices of time management, used by social actors, are related to contemporary economy, thus what the role of time in management is. Implementation of such a defined task will allow us to improve the perspective of economic anthropology (Hann, Hart 2015).
2. The second objective has been determined from the perspective of neoliberal anthropology (Burszta, Jezierski, Rauszer 2016) and it refers to identification of elements of social time systemic redistribution, namely methods of creating time balances depending on a type of activities, occupation, education, sex and age (Nowotny 2005). This objective will be achieved by analyzing experiences of certain individuals, related to division into labour time and free time in the context of deregulation and flexibility of these elements in neoliberal times.
3. The last objective is to determine features of temporal organization of daily life, resulting from implementation of cultural practices of time management. Realization of this objective will improve the perspective of time anthropology (Gell 1992; 1992). Knowing cultural practices of time management will uncover social patterns of temporality actions that can be noticed especially in schedules of daily life, partially imposed on an individual and being used to construct social entities (Gosden 1994: 144-146).
Thus, the project objective is to analyze attitudes of certain social entities with reference to techniques of time management and how individuals affirm or reject neoliberal discourses related to human temporality. The additional objective is to determine, in what situations neoliberal temporal rhetoric is contested and what the attempts to go beyond the neoliberal discourse are [Dwojnych 2016]. By reaching the project objectives the theory on contemporary ‘time regimes’ will be supplemented and improved (Pickering 2004; Sabelis 2007). Obtained knowledge on methods of experiencing time and social standards of choreography of temporality will make it possible to review the socio-temporal order present in neoliberalism (Zerubavel 1979: 107).
The main theoretical approach, in which I place experiencing of time by social actors I research is the theory of Michel Foucault, describing ways of control over temporality of certain individuals and social groups in the form of the pressure strategy, technologies of power and disciplinary mechanisms (Foucault 1995). The main term used in the project is discipline being microphysics of power ‘making an individual be subject to disciplinary mechanisms of state power’. This power ‘has influence not only on freedom of speech and thinking, but also on who one can be’ [Burzyńska, Markowski 2006: 535]. Foucault defined time sense as the intentional products of a state administration, whose major, if not exclusive, function is to assure that discipline reigns over society as a whole (Foucault 1995: 216). According to the French philosopher, one of state power characteristics is enforcement of time regimes. Pressure is so strong that in some moment the enforced time definitions become finally internalized to such extent that external pressure is not needed anymore, because individuals watch themselves and impose time regimes created by authorities on themselves.
The assumed research project is based on two complementary approaches. On one hand cultural practices of time management can be seen as tools helpful in synchronization and coordination of different schedules of social life, related to variety of social times created by each social class, each group and each micro social element (Gurvitch 1990). However, it should be considered that the need to integrate and normalize various schedules leads to creation of a time ladder specific for a certain culture and depending on a method of harmonization of social time variety analogical to heterogeneity of groups functioning within the society. On the other hand systemic attempts to reach standardization is not equal in all social groups. Various practices related to time management are sometimes understood as oppressive tools shaping temporality of certain objects. The social mechanism of social time redistribution leads to enhancement or reduction of social inequalities. Diversification of the society can be seen in some people complaining about lack of time, while others wondering what to do with too large amount of it (Denek 2006). With reference to both aspects researchers mention domination of the temporality context and thorough control of individual’s body, going hand in hand with the criteria of efficiency and usability of social entities, assessed in the context of neoliberal values (Beck, Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Nowotny 2005; Gądecki 2017).
Cultural practices of time management could be named disciplines constituting methods allowing to perform ‘thorough control of body activities’ and providing continuous ‘subjection of its forces’ [Foucault 1995: 137]. Subjected temporality of individuals make them be more efficient, more effective and more profit-oriented objects that preserve in themselves and reproduce the neoliberal discourse in social practice, as well as they maintain the innovative system of control and domination supported by the mechanism of disciplines. They are power techniques, by means of which it is possible to have influence on bodies ‘not only so they may do what one wishes, but so they may operate as one wishes’ [Foucault 1995: 138]. According to the French philosopher, ‘discipline produces […] subjected and practiced bodies, «docile» bodies [Foucault 1995: 138]. It can be seen in collegia, elementary schools, hospitals, barracks or factories, in general in detailed arrangement of day-to-day activities that were governed by regulations. Foucault calls a discipline political anatomy of detail [Foucault 1995: 137]. Control of an individual body is used to enhance productivity that became a dominant value highly generated by capitalism. Cultural practices of time management are an element of the process of gradual appropriation of our time, including sleep, by the capitalistic logic of efficiency and productivity (Crary 2013).
Realization of assumed objectives will be possible by means of the analysis of practices and contemporary strategies of time management. As I want to get to the subjective experience of social actors, my research is based on the anthropological research axiom, namely ethnography. My approach can be described by means of ethnography of experiencing time by social entities. Research on cultural symptoms of neoliberalism requires using ethnography enabling to reach social practice and providing ‘knowledge on how neoliberalism is expressed in microscales, i.e. in specific socio-political spaces’ (Songin-Mokrzan 2016: 220).
Nowadays, time management is understood as planned and systematical performance of actions leading to reaching a goal (Karwowski 2015: 105), whereas time management trainings are a part of personal development workshops (mentoring, coaching, mental coaching, etc.) that offer assistance in reaching set goals by means of more efficient actions (Wujec 2012). Personal development workshops are oriented to identify areas, in which participants need support to manage their time better; become open-minded for dreams and goals (in compliance with coaching rules saying that goals are dreams with a set deadline to reach); skillful planning; and identification of techniques that an individual can use to implement assumed plans, realize identified goals and work efficiently (Karwowski 2015: 106-113). The idea of this kind of workshops corresponds with such neoliberal values like efficiency, innovativeness and creativity.
Realization of the project will make it possible to analyze social and economical changes occurring in the period of neoliberalism understood as the main political and economical paradigm of contemporary times (Chomsky 1999; Harvey 2008; Pobłocki 2017). Moreover, the project focuses not only on thinking methods, but also on real actions used by individuals to develop their own strategies enabling them to exist in contemporary culture of hurriedness, efficiency, lack of time and overwork (Leccardi 2007). These strategies are used to customize an individual, biologic life rhythm (Klein 2006) to the inconvenient rhythm of social time, imposed by the neoliberal ideology strongly shaping perception of the contemporary world (Crary 2013).
However, in the context of my research as a whole I would be interested not only in the discourse generating definitions individuals use in the process of evaluation of the surrounding world, but also in all types of tools, like modern calendars, portable organizers and smartphone applications, used by individuals for time management. In the Foucault terminology these listed tools are ‘disciplines’, these ‘small things’ used ‘for the control and use of man’ [Foucault 1995: 141]. Though the French philosopher mentioned them in the context of the classical age he defined as lasting from 1650 to 1800, currently we also encounter thorough surveillance over a detail and political use of ‘small things’ used to subject human temporality. Social temporal technicization became an element of contemporary time regimes, a mechanism of power subjecting our bodies to the discipline.
In order to understand how choreography of temporality of social actors is performed, I am also going to make use of the Action Network Theory (ANT) developed by Bruno Latour and assuming existence of agency of both human and non-human objects (Latour 2010). This theory will help to provide enhanced understanding of variety of time management practices that belong to the areas of both nature (adjusted to the natural biological rhythm of a human body under pressure of neoliberal rhetoric) and culture. They are rooted in both social and technological contexts (Latour 2011: 16). Isolated single objects are not included in the ANT scope. These are networks being heterogeneous integers creating results of human being actions. ANT proposes the analysis of culture as the process, in which objects (both human and non-human actors) have the ability to create changes and are enabled to do so by their will to be accepted by certain types of knowledge. While performing my research, I will pay particular attention to the issue of new technologies (smartphone technologies) that are initiating changes linked to how temporal phenomena are perceived and being a result of more and more perceptible blending of leisure and labour to an unprecedented degree (Niehaus 2013). Though these Foucault ‘smart things’ needed to subdue human temporality are most of all seen as a technological innovation, many complementary assets (social, political, economic and cultural) related to methods of organization of labour and leisure time are involved, when using time management applications. The Latour theory allows to observe our perception of time, that we have via technologies and that is organized and created with use of applications, and it can done by obtaining partial reconstruction of socio-technological relations and comprehensive review of phenomena in the fields of power and domination (Latour 2013). ANT transfers non-human elements from the secondary level to the one that is equivalent to the position occupied by human being activities. It changes the way we see social phenomena and processes consisting of a network of knowledge, ideas, technologies, living organisms, things and humans.