Anthropology of Time

Time - relentless ever-present but intangible and the single element over which human beings have no absolute control - has long proved a puzzle. The author examines the phenomenon of time and asks such fascinating questions as how time impinges on people to what extent our awareness of time is culturally conditioned how societies deal with temporal problems and whether time can be considered a `resource' to be economized. More specifically he provides a consistent and detailed analysis of theories put forward by a number of thinkers such as Durkheim Evans-Pritchard Lévi-Strauss Geertz Piaget Husserl and Bourdieu. His discussion encompasses four main approaches in time research namely developmental psychology symbolic anthropology (covering the bulk of post-Durkheimian social anthropology) `economic' theories of time in social geography and finally phenomenological theories. The author concludes by presenting his own model of social/cognitive time in the light of these critical discussions of the literature.