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Abstract
While it is now widely recognized that globalization is socially constructed, time is often still seen as a natural unalterable force. Drawing on the literature on the social construction of time, we explore the role of human agency in the interaction of time and globalization by developing the concept of temporal systems. These systems are assemblages that bring together temporal artefacts such as clocks and schedules, the temporalities of the natural world and the body, and social practices involving agency, power, and organization. We then explore, through four illustrative examples, how such systems interact with and constitute globalization. These examples are: the initial emergence and contemporary operation of world standard time; the manipulation of the future and speed in global financial markets; the rise of informal international organizations in global governance; and the role of temporality in the strategic behaviour of multinational corporations.
Acknowledgements
The helpful comments of two anonymous referees from this journal and from participants in the Time and Globalization workshops held at McMaster University in October 2012 and September 2013 are gratefully acknowledged.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant numbers 410-2011-2376 and 611-2012-0098].
Notes
1 This is the point made by Norbert Elias in the preface to his celebrated essay on time, as he discusses how the clocks and calendars through which humans apprehend and mediate natural temporalities—and thus the very concept of ‘time' itself, which is constructed through this process—developed out of the strategic organizational requirements of human civilization (Elias, Citation1992, pp. 4, 13; see also Luckmann, Citation1991, p. 161).
2 This is epitomized by Fleming's involvement in high-risk investments in Brazilian railroad and mining ventures in the late 1880s, as these potentially lucrative schemes ‘employed the very transportation and communication technologies that necessitated [temporal] standardization' (Barrows, Citation2011, p. 46).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Tony Porter
Tony Porter is Professor of Political Science, McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. His most recent books are Transnational financial associations and the governance of global finance: Assembling power and wealth (RIPE/Routledge, 2013), co-authored with HeatherMcKeen-Edwards; and Transnational financial regulation after the financial crisis (RIPE/Routledge, 2014, edited).
Liam Stockdale
Liam Stockdale is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University. His research interests sit at the intersection of international relations and contemporary political and social theory, with an emphasis on the temporalities of societal governance. He has previously published articles on the politics of pre-emptive security in the War on Terror, and the global politics of sport.