TEMPORALITIES OF RUPTURE AND CONTINUITY
October, 16-17 2024
Marburg
After exchanging and engaging with each other’s work for our 4th Think Lab held in Frankfurt, we continue to explore themes and concepts under the umbrella of PostColonial Hiearchies in Peace and Conflict.
This time we will be convening to discuss a theme of temporality and time and various ways it configures in our research. Temporality with the focus on postcolonial studies in particular, could be articulated within the debates of (1) challenging the linear conception of time; (2) the importance of focusing on continuities – continuities of structures and structural violence; (3) challenging or reaffirming the notion of rupture, particularly when it comes to the official regime change; (4) reflecting on how the notion of time and temporality is conceived outside of Euro-modern tradition, taking into consideration different contexts and historicities; and interrogating (5) what is ‘post’ in postcolonialism.
Thematically, the discussion will also focus on the intersections of time and space, multi-temporality (instances when time and events are perceived differently by those affected and those in power) and digital timescapes (how do digital spaces make us rethink time and space?), and vernacular (developed and articulated on grassroots level) and fluid conceptions of time and temporality, beyond succession and contingency. Importantly for postcolonial situations, temporality also allows us to think about systems of knowledge (temporality as an epistemic frame) and structures of power, the idea of futurity and teleology, memory, reflections on multiple pasts, and temporal governance within various disciplines.
The above-mentioned concepts and debates configure in one way or another in the research of the members of the Network. Through exchange and learning from one another, as well as from the invited guest speakers, we hope to reflect further and expand our understanding of time and temporality, enriching our conceptual and methodological takes on the question beyond established frames.
