Differences in Temporal Reasoning

Author(s)

Felix Ringel

Abstract

Hoyerswerda, Germany’s fastest-shrinking city, faces problems with the future that seem initially unrelated to the past and yet excite manifold conflicting accounts of it. The multiple and conflicting temporal references employed by Hoy- erswerdians indicate that the temporal regime of postsocialism is accompanied, if not overcome, by the temporal framework of shrinkage. By reintroducing the an- alytical domain of the future, I show that local temporal knowledge practices are not historically predetermined by a homogenous postsocialist culture or by par- ticular generational experiences. Rather, they exhibit what I call temporal com- plexity and temporal flexibility—creative uses of a variety of coexisting temporal references. My ethnographic material illustrates how such expressions of different forms of temporal reasoning structure social relations within and between differ- ent generations. Corresponding social groups are not simply divided by age, but are united through shared and heavily disputed negotiations of the post–Cold War era’s contemporary crisis.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology

Volume

66

Pages

25-35

No. of pages

11

ISSN

0920-1297

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2013.660103

Publication date

2013

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

504010 European ethnology, 504009 Ethnology

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/4f08df4d-5fc3-44f5-b087-73cb119e9107