Can Time Be Tricked?

A Theoretical Introduction

in The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
Author:
Felix Ringel University of Vienna felix.ringel@univie.ac.at

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/ca.2016.340104
Keywords:
epistemology; future; ontology; post-industrial infrastructure; temporal agency; time; time-tricking
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This theoretical introduction develops a conceptual argument stemming from the concept of ‘time-tricking’. Whilst most theories of time in anthropology develop a coherent definition of the nature of time – for instance, as ‘cyclical’ or ‘linear’ – I draw attention to a seemingly common metaphysical distinction in our temporal ontologies, that between the past and the future. This distinction allows me to do two things: first, I present two different versions of time-tricking, one focusing on references to time and particularly to the past, the other conceptualizing effects on the future; and then, second, I present the future as the main object of temporal agency. By developing the notion of ‘future-tricking’, I point to a specific kind of temporal agency which is based on metaphysical commitments heavily embedded in the present in politics, interests and possibilities.

Contributor Notes

Felix Ringel is Assistant Professor/Lecturer (Habilitationsstelle) at the University of Vienna, and works on knowledge, time and urban regeneration in mid-sized European cities. His publications on post-industrial shrinkage and the future include articles in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Critique of Anthropology and Focaal.

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Cover The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
10
Keywords:
epistemology; future; ontology; post-industrial infrastructure; temporal agency; time; time-tricking
Print Publication Date:
01 Mar 2016
Online Publication Date:
01 Mar 2016
Copyright:
© The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 2016
Editorial
General Article
Special Section - Time-Tricking: Reconsidering Temporal Agency in Troubled Times
Part I. Time-Tricking in Moments of Crisis: Political and Economic Manipulations of Time
Part II. Maintaining Other Times: Technologies for Being Out-of-Time
Book Review

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