Afterword

For a New Materialist Analytics of Time

in The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
Author:
Laura Bear London School of Economics L.Bear@lse.ac.uk

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/ca.2016.340112
Keywords:
capitalism; Marxism; materialism; secular ethics; temporality; time
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How might we construct a reinvigorated materialist analytics of human time that pushes beyond Marxist approaches? Here, I suggest that anthropology contains rich resources with which to achieve this aim. In particular, it can help us understand the qualities of secular and capitalist ‘modern’ time. An emphasis on time-tricking is especially useful in revealing the technologies of imagination, the ethics and the inequalities of such a temporal orientation. This concept brings into view the materialist ethic, ludic and aesthetic practices, and misrecognitions characteristic of current forms of ‘modern’ time. In addition, ethnographies of time-tricking provide the foundations for a reworking of Marx’s model of free and disposable time by focusing on informalized, social reproductive, excessive and domestic labour. A re-centring of our theories on these significant activities within capitalism is long overdue.

Contributor Notes

Laura Bear is Professor in the Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics. Her most recent publications include Navigating Austerity: Currents of Debt Along a South Asian River (Stanford, 2015) and, with Ritu Birla and Stine Puri, ‘Speculation: Futures and Capitalism in India’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2015).

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Cover The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
5
Keywords:
capitalism; Marxism; materialism; secular ethics; temporality; time
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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