Against the Fetishization of Plural Time
Rethinking Ways of Doing a Social History of Time

By (author) Nitin Sinha

ISBN13: 9783111696492

Imprint: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Publisher: De Gruyter

Format: Hardback

Published: 14/10/2025

Availability: Not yet available

Description
From the viewpoint of social history, is time itself a plural entity or are there multiple forms of engagement in and with it? Pivoted around this question, Sinha attempts to rethink the current theory and practice of history writing by pointing the pitfalls of the growing fetishization of plurality and the ‘plural time’ framework. Engaging a range of studies in History, Anthropology, and Sociology, Sinha provides a critical assessment of some of the leading frameworks on time studies, questions their foundational premises, highlights their limitations, and proposes an alternative framework that is attuned to privileging the approach of social history. The purposes of the latter, the book argues, is best served when time’s irreversible character is not diluted under the weight of plurality. Plurality in time is an outcome of practices and their historicization; plurality of time can become an empty statement. Rather than defining what time is, the book casts that inquiry into the historical mould to explore how time, as a contestatory resource, becomes part of social relationships and what it does to them when scripts of power align themselves with the control of time.
  • History
  • History: earliest times to present day
  • Professional & Vocational
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List Price: £64.00