Time Work

Michael G. Flaherty is Professor of Sociology at Eckerd College and the University of South Florida. He is the author of The Textures of Time: Agency and Temporal Experience (Temple University Press, 2011). He was also the recipient of a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (2016-2017).

“…an eclectic and enthralling collection of ethnographic studies…[that] is well structured and beautifully written. As the afterword notes, the book almost reads like a novel, with captivating ethnographic stories on themes ranging from the mundane to the spiritual. The variety of cultures covered—from Canada to Brazil to Kyrgyzstan—attests to an important aspect of time work: it’s universal. We all need time, and we all need to work on our time.” • Contemporary Sociology“This book is a highly valuable and stimulating contribution to any social scientists interested in time. As any good scholarship, it certainly opens up conductive lines of inquiry to be further addressed in social studies of time. Furthermore, the chapters are very fluently written, well-presented, and highly readable, which, among other things, testify to the excellent work of the book’s editors.” • Symbolic Interaction“Overall, the series of chapters constitutes a wide-ranging and provocative expansion of the initial framing of the concept of timework and details the bases in ethnographical evidence for its contemporary development. In the process, some highly relevant and nuanced insights emerge from this wider-scoped timework research, in terms of its relevance to and import for contemporary discourses about human agency in a wide range of settings. The editors weave these thematic sets of contributions into a compelling narrative of temporal agency as a deeply personal yet culturally situated and diverse family of activities with a universal relevance that is deserving of further social scientific inquiry.” • Kronoscope“The central theme of this book is crucial to our understanding of the present. The conceptual themes of the chapters are very complementary and detailed … an inspiration for study and for readers’ own research. Each is well written, and warmly appreciative of local wisdom.” • Jane Guyer, Johns Hopkins University“[This book] deals with issues of time, and particularly of people's attempts to manipulate temporal experience. In that way it speaks to a topic that has always been somewhat present in the social sciences, but that only relatively recently sees sustained and in-depth attention.” • Stef Jansen, University of Manchester

• PART I: BEGINNINGS, CONCEPTS, AND QUESTIONSIntroductionMichael G. Flaherty, Anne Line Dalsgård, and Lotte MeinertChapter 1. The Lathe of Time: Some Principles of Temporal AgencyMichael G. FlahertyPART II: TEMPORAL AFFLICTIONSChapter 2. Repetition Work: Healing Spirits and Trauma in the Churches of Northern UgandaLars Williams and Lotte MeinertChapter 3. ADHD and Temporal Experiences: Struggling for SynchronizationMikka NielsenPART III: THE POLITICS OF TIMEChapter 4. Hacking Time and Looping Temporalities in the Identification of the Adult “Living Disappeared” in ArgentinaNoa VaismanChapter 5. Temporal Front and Back Stages: Time Work as ResistanceLisa-Jo K. van den ScottPART IV: SPIRITUALITY AND ATHEISM AS TEMPORAL AGENCYChapter 6. Se Deus Quiser: Catholicism as Time Work among the Xukuru of PernambucoClarissa Martins LimaChapter 7. “It Is Just Doing the Motion”: Atheist Time Work in Contemporary KyrgyzstanMaria LouwPART V: REINVENTING THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTUREChapter 8. Inventing New Time: Time Work in the Grief Practices of Bereaved ParentsDorthe Refslund Christensen and Kjetil SandvikChapter 9. Now Is Not: Future Anteriority and a Georgian in RussiaMartin Demant FrederiksenPART VI: TIME AND DEPRIVATIONChapter 10. The Work of Waiting: Boredom, Teatime, and Future-Making in NigerAdeline MasquelierChapter 11. Balancing Blood Sugar: Fasting, Feeling, and Time Work During the Egyptian RamadanMille Kjærgaard Thorsen and Anne Line DalsgårdAfterwordCarmen LeccardiIndex