Veranstaltung: Workshop “On Time – Temporal and Normative Ordering of Mobilities” (13.–14.09.2018, Siegen)

The international workshop “On Time – Temporal and Normative Ordering of Mobilities”, organized by the CRC Media of Cooperation (DFG) at the University of Siegen, will take place in Siegen on November 13–14, 2018.

Temporality and normativity are interwoven with one another: Timings convey norms and normative shifts. Rhythms enforce forms of life, conveying rules and principles. Flows of time fit experience and expectation to one another producing specific versions of past, present and future. The end of time conjures up both utopian and dystopian visions.

Yet, while the plurality of normative orders has emerged as a crucial issue of social theory (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1999), its temporal dynamics have received little attention so far. And while the accelerating dynamics of time (Rosa, 2015; Simmel, 1903; Benjamin, 1999; Virilio, 1997; Wajcman & Dodd, 2017) as well as the plurality of temporal orders have been recognized (Lefebvre, 2004), implications for theorizing normative orders remain unclear. In social theory, time has been addressed as a social ordering principle (Zerubavel, 1982) emphasizing the symbolic dimension and the normative aspects of social regularities. Especially with industrialization processes (Adam, 2004) clock time has been naturalized as commodified, compressed, colonized and controlled resource which regulates social relations. Normativity, on the other hand, is typically understood through spatial and static imagery, in terms of already given normative “spheres,” “reach” and “binding force.” The normativity of time, in turn, is commonly backgrounded and kept “still” as a rather unproblematic, uncontested convention guarded by technology. By temporalizing phenomena—e.g. systems of gift exchange (Bourdieu, 1977)—a praxeological perspective questions such static views on normative orders and shows how issues of timing are integral to social practices. […]

The workshop is free of charge. Pre-registration is required.

For more information, check the workshop’s website.