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The Anthropology of Time: History and the State of the Art [Antropologiia vremeni: ocherk istorii i sovremennosti]
 
PIIS086954150017934-7-1
DOI10.31857/S086954150017934-7
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov 
Affiliation: HSE University - St. Petersburg
Address: Russian Federation, St. Petersburg
Journal nameEtnograficheskoe obozrenie
Edition№6
Pages83-103
Abstract

This essay charts the history of the anthropology of time from the vantage point of what I see as its key contemporary problem: that of temporal multiplicity. I find it endemic to virtually every ethnographic context where one finds often radically different ways to understand time, measure it and account for the past, the present and the future. The problem is, if ethnographically time is multiple, how can we understand relations between different temporalities in such multiplicities? How are they organised? Drawing on my own ethnography and on other current work, I argue for at least two different ways to conceptualise multiplicity through relations of (1) change and (2) exchange between different temporalities.

Keywordsanthropology of time, temporality, singularity, multiplicity, history of anthropology, anthropological theory
Publication date23.12.2021
Number of characters45744
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1 Историю антропологии времени можно рассказать по-разному. Можно выстроить ее вокруг взлета и падения понятия коллективно разделяемого “социального времени” Дюркгейма. С этой точки зрения можно видеть, как интерес к коллективным представлениям уступает место вопросам агентности и когнитивным процессам (Gell 1992; Greenhouse 1996). Можно рассказать о том, как исследовательская повестка в этой области менялась в контексте глобализации западных категорий времени. Это история колонизации локальных представлений, их замещения и переработки в глобальных иерархиях “империй времени” (Galison 2004), капиталистической современности и антропоцена (Bear 2014a; 2014b; 2016; Ogle 2015; Adam 1998; Irvine 2020). Можно исходить из того, что антропология сама стала агентом этой колонизации времени. Тогда эта история о том, как классические для антропологии эволюционные, структурные и релятивистские онтологии конституируют свои объекты исследования как разницу во времени между западной современностью и культурными “Другими”, являясь, таким образом, формами имперского и “модерного” знания (Fabian 1983; Ssorin-Chaikov 2019a; 2019b).
2 Я поведу свой рассказ по-другому. В истории антропологии времени меня будет интересовать соотношение темпоральной сингулярности и множественности. Антропология времени возникла как сомнение в универсальности (сингулярности) времени физического, характерного прежде всего для естественных наук. Альтернативный тезис антропологов обычно состоит в том, что время специфично для каждой конкретной культуры. Эта альтернатива, казалось бы, противопоставляет сингулярности множественность. Но так ли это? Все зависит от того, как именно мы понимаем множественность. Если мы, к примеру, рассматриваем общества и культуры как отдельные вселенные, то мы меняем одну сингулярность (универсальное физическое время) на другую (отдельная культурная вселенная). Либо время универсально, либо специфично для каждой конкретной культуры. Либо есть общее истинное время, либо этих истин много, но каждая истина представляет собой изолированную социокультурную территорию. Это, вне сомнения, множественность (множество), но состоящая из совокупности или суммы сингулярностей, – культур – как своеобразных отдельных планет или островов, где время организовано и течет по-разному.
3 Далее кажется, что глобальная современность – с ее часами, гаджетами и часовыми поясами – как раз и представляет собой темпоральную сингулярность. Но парадоксально, что чем больше антропологи исследуют интеграции отдельных культурных единиц в разного рода глобальные системы – в империи нового времени, мировой социализм или капитализм, – тем больше они приходят к пониманию, что это как раз не так. Как я продемонстрирую ниже, во-первых, время этой глобальной современности не сингулярно; во-вторых, осознание этого в антропологии наступает примерно тогда же, когда формируется вывод о том, что время вообще не сводимо к сингулярной системе координат (Munn 1992) даже на отдельно взятом “острове времени”. Итак, дело не в том, что в эпоху глобализации культурное разнообразие представлений о времени унифицируется. Вектор этой трансформации совсем не направлен от множественности к сингулярности с точки зрения того, как этот вектор рассматривают антропологи. Скорее наоборот: мы можем наблюдать в антропологии замену того, что я называю “аналитикой темпоральной сингулярности” или множественности как суммы сингулярностей, рассматривающей время или как универсальное, или как специфичное для каждой конкретной культуры, “аналитикой темпоральной множественности”, где каждая система временных координат работает не в изоляции от других, а во взаимоотношениях с ними. В данной статье я рассмотрю этот вектор смены аналитики. Меня также будет интересовать то, как можно помыслить эти взаимоотношения внутри множественности темпоральностей – т.е. отношения между темпоральностями. В частности, я рассмотрю современную литературу в свете двух модальностей этих отношений: модальности изменения (change) и модальности обмена (exchange), которые я более детально исследую в другой работе (Ssorin-Chaikov 2017).

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