Regimes of temporality: China, Tibet and the politics of time in the post-2008 era

Séagh Kehoe

doi:10.1177/0163443720907535

Abstract

While the politics of time are an important dimension of Chinese state discourse about Tibet, it remains insufficiently explored in theoretical and practical terms. This article examines the written and visual discourses of Tibetan temporality across Chinese state media in the post-2008 era. It analyses how these media discourses attempt to construct a ‘regime of temporality’ in order to manage public opinion about Tibet and consolidate Chinese rule over the region. While the expansion of online technologies has allowed the state to consolidate its discourses about Tibet’s place within the People’s Republic of China (PRC), they have also provided Tibetans a limited but valuable space to challenge these official representations through counter readings of Tibet’s past, present and future. In doing so, this article contributes new insights on the production of state power over Tibet, online media practices in China, and the disruptive potential of social media as sites of Tibetan counter discourses.

Highlights

While the politics of time are an important dimension of Chinese state discourse about Tibet, it remains insufficiently explored in theoretical and practical terms
Focusing on the ways in which the Chinese state has intensified its efforts to reaffirm its legitimacy and territorial claims over Tibet in the 2008 era, I identified the convergence of power, ideology and media in representations of Tibet’s past, present and future and how they work to secure Tibet within the homogeneous national time of the Chinese state
Following Poell’s (2019) work, I argue that these discourses produce a regime of temporality that imposes upon Tibet a narrative of steady linear progression from ‘hell on earth’ towards Chinese socialist modernity, encasing Tibet within a totalising Chinese national time while constraining, and discrediting alternative narratives of the region’s past, present and future

Summary

Introduction

While the politics of time are an important dimension of Chinese state discourse about Tibet, it remains insufficiently explored in theoretical and practical terms. This article examines the written and visual discourses of Tibetan temporality across Chinese state media in the post-2008 era It analyses how these media discourses attempt to construct a ‘regime of temporality’ in order to manage public opinion about Tibet and consolidate Chinese rule over the region. While the expansion of online technologies has allowed the state to consolidate its discourses about Tibet’s place within the People’s Republic of China (PRC), they have provided Tibetans a limited but valuable space to challenge these official representations through counter readings of Tibet’s past, present and future. Using Poell’s (2019) term ‘regime of temporality’ to describe the convergence of power, ideology and media in the production and ordering of time, I argue that discourses of temporality are an important state media strategy that attempt to manage public opinion about Tibet while contributing to broader efforts to reinforce Chinese rule over the region. This article contributes new insights on the production of state power over Tibet, online media practices in China and the disruptive potential of Tibetan counter discourses

Methods

Findings

Conclusion