The chronopolitics of racial time

Abstract

This paper begins with a general discussion of chronopolitics and how I intend to apply the term in connection with Eviatar Zerubavel’s “time maps,” using familiar religious and secular examples to illustrate the concept. Then, drawing on recent philosophical and historical work on race and racism, I argue for political “racial” times, albeit of contested periodizations. The uncontroversially racialized time of white modernity then provides the primary focus. Finally, I conclude with a call for the resetting of the Euro-chronometer, whose oppressive temporality has historically come in both left and right versions.