Time's up, timed out: reflections on social time and legal pluralism

Abstract

This essay connects two longstanding anthropological themes by reconsidering Durkheim's distinction between social time and personal time through the lens of legal pluralism; I also turn the temporal lens the other way, to reflect on legal pluralism. Drawing on the work of the von Benda-Beckmanns, I begin by suggesting that we might look for illuminating connections between social time and legal pluralism wherever people make urgent demands of law, and wherever states turn to law as a means of social engineering. That possibility informs my essay and choice of examples, all from the United States. First, I review two major pieces of social legislation that were explicit in their social engineering goals. Next, I consider the temporalities inscribed in the eligibility requirements for social programs set up under the broad terms of those acts. In the conclusion, I return to the question of how social time and legal pluralism might be mutually informing in ways that shed fresh light on both themes – blurring the line between social time and personal time, and considering legal pluralism as extending to the interrelation of memberships and subjective attachments.