Out of time: the temporal limits of coronavirus-inspired solidarity with workers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Researchers note that cultural images of possible economic futures are to a great extent rooted in the frames of thinking of the present. But not all present frames of thinking yield such images; some are excluded from our sense of what the future can be. Analyzing how the Wall Street Journal referred to workers at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, this study identifies such a frame—a solidarity frame—and reveals discursive formations that limited its temporal scope. The analysis shows that the extension of economic solidarity into the future imaginary was discursively hindered at the very same time such solidarity was expressed, and unravels a complex politics of time in the constitution of economic futures. Its findings further our understanding of the discursive processes that limit the effects of crises on transformative imaginaries.