Chrono-Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Temporal Balancing and Moralities of Time in Contemporary Urban China.

Abstract

This article addresses the management and control of time in contemporary urban China. It traces how competing claims to, and experiences of, time as a limited resource shape the terms of moral engagement among middle-class women, their families, their employers, and their friends. Drawing upon two distinct periods of fieldwork among middle-class families in urban China between 2007 and 2017, I show how Chinese subjects balance private, public, and interpersonal claims on time, creating hybrid approaches to time management that I refer to as chrono-socialism with Chinese characteristics. This balancing act is gendered: women, and especially mothers, are charged with protecting the moral status of their families and their children through effective temporal balancing. Paying attention to moments of discordant expectations, in the form of expressions of impatience, can illuminate the logics of temporal balancing in the domains of work, play, and rest. [time, morality, impatience, socialism with Chinese characteristics, China].