Sustaining Time: exploring the emergent times of alternative economies
In 2013 the AHRC funded a number of small exploratory grants under the Care for the Future Theme. As one of these exploratory awards, this project was motivated by the central question, 'What is the time of a sustainable economy?' That is, if industrial capitalism is often linked with clock time, and late capitalism with a speeded up, 24/7 networked time, we explored whether it was the case that attempts to build new alternative economies could be understood as making a new time.
In a context where any hope of a speedy recovery from the 2008 economic crisis is increasingly untenable, there has been an explosion of interest around alternatives to the neo-liberal capitalist model. Focusing on the potential of collaborative relationships, rather than ones based on competition, proponents of the new economics are exploring gift economies, the potential of the peer-to-peer paradigm, shared consumption, crowd-funding and rediscovering cooperative models. Importantly, much of this work draws on historical models for inspiration and thus provides an important example of the Care for the Future theme's focus on 'thinking forward through the past'. There are also indications that this re-valuing of the past links into broader shifts in senses of time. This includes an interest in the Slow movement (including Slow Food, Slow Cities, Slow Science and Slow Money), but can also been seen in shifts in thinking about social interventions in terms of non-linear models of change, such as can be seen in the Transition Towns movement.
As part of exploring whether this issue has the potential to develop into a larger research project, the project team has produced a variety of resources that set out some of the key issues at stake when thinking about time and alternative economies. This includes a number of case studies, an interview series and reports on the potential of archival material to shed light on current attempts to shift dominant economic and temporal structures. As part of this we were also interested in exploring the range of methods that might be available for studying the often implicit conceptualisations of time that guide social actors. In the interests of engaging a broad range of people concerned with these issues, we will make all our materials available on our project website where possible. We also held three events exploring issues raised in the project.
Project Participants:
Dr Michelle Bastian (PI) | Dr Alex Buchanan (Co-I) | Jen Southern | new economics foundation | REconomy Project (part of the Transition Network) | Cooperatives UK | Permaculture Association |
Project Website:
www.sustainingtime.org
In a context where any hope of a speedy recovery from the 2008 economic crisis is increasingly untenable, there has been an explosion of interest around alternatives to the neo-liberal capitalist model. Focusing on the potential of collaborative relationships, rather than ones based on competition, proponents of the new economics are exploring gift economies, the potential of the peer-to-peer paradigm, shared consumption, crowd-funding and rediscovering cooperative models. Importantly, much of this work draws on historical models for inspiration and thus provides an important example of the Care for the Future theme's focus on 'thinking forward through the past'. There are also indications that this re-valuing of the past links into broader shifts in senses of time. This includes an interest in the Slow movement (including Slow Food, Slow Cities, Slow Science and Slow Money), but can also been seen in shifts in thinking about social interventions in terms of non-linear models of change, such as can be seen in the Transition Towns movement.
As part of exploring whether this issue has the potential to develop into a larger research project, the project team has produced a variety of resources that set out some of the key issues at stake when thinking about time and alternative economies. This includes a number of case studies, an interview series and reports on the potential of archival material to shed light on current attempts to shift dominant economic and temporal structures. As part of this we were also interested in exploring the range of methods that might be available for studying the often implicit conceptualisations of time that guide social actors. In the interests of engaging a broad range of people concerned with these issues, we will make all our materials available on our project website where possible. We also held three events exploring issues raised in the project.
Project Participants:
Dr Michelle Bastian (PI) | Dr Alex Buchanan (Co-I) | Jen Southern | new economics foundation | REconomy Project (part of the Transition Network) | Cooperatives UK | Permaculture Association |
Project Website:
www.sustainingtime.org
| sustaining_time_final_project_report.pdf |
