Time-space and ethics work

Helen Colley

Manchester Metropolitan University

Education and Social Research Institute

Seddon, Henriksson & Niemeyer

Learning and work and the politics of working life, Routledge 2010:

• Re-ordering of work in human service occupations inc. education…

• …leads to occupational boundary work• ‘Occupation’ vs. ‘profession’• Gramsci’s notion of ‘passive revolution’• But focus on space/place• What about time?

Time, space and ethics

My four key premises:

1.Space-time / time-space

2.Time(-space) ethics

3.Sociological vs. philosophical perspective

4.Accounting for patriarchal, racist capitalism

Outline of presentation

• Philosophical views of time + ethics• Dialectical materialist view of time-space +

ethics – David Harvey• How contemporary time-space re-orders

ethics of education work• Examples of the boundary work this

generates – youth support work• Questions about socially transformative

change

Thinking about time and ethics

• Taken-for-granted: – background ‘flow’– learn from past, form goals in present, pursue

them for future – teleological analysis of identity and agency

• Exemplified in ESRC Teaching & Learning Research Programme (esp. Learning Lives)

• Deeply problematic assumptions about intentionality and agency (Bourdieu)

Thinking about time and ethics

Heidegger:• Being-in-Time, Being-unto-Death• the present as inauthentic• spatiality/materiality/sociality as corrupting• solipsistic orientation to ultimate future

(death) as autonomous, asocial ethic• masculinist heroic mastery (Chanter, 2001)

Thinking about time and ethics

Levinas vs. Heidegger:• time entails social interaction with Others• metaphysics of presence, materiality, desire• ethics of social solidarity• elevation of feminine care as ethical ideal• but fails to recognise historical oppression of

women – remains patriarchal• generalised, abstract ‘Other’ erases material

experiences of inequality (Sikka 2001, Hewitt 1997)

Thinking about time and ethicsMassey:• Cf. Foucault – vs. notions of space as

fixed/dead and time as dynamic• change mobilisation of both time and space• relational view of space-time• space-time produces/is produced by difference• ethical/political stance views difference as

source of progressive social change• but neglects capitalism (Castree, 2009)

What about the times-spaces in which we live?

- capitalist economic crisis

- austerity

- intensifying inequalities

- difference as source of wealth

The tyranny of capital’s time

Time is everything, man is nothing, he is at most time’s carcase. Quality no longer matters. Quantity decides everything; hour for hour; day for day.

(Marx, cited in Mészáros, 2008)

Time-space in capitalism

• David Harvey and others…• Time in three registers

– Historical time– Abstract clock time– Concrete process time

• Space in two registers– ‘Production’ space (commodities)– ‘Living’ space (social reproduction)

• All time-space is constituted through praxis, not external to praxis

Abstract time

Abstract time seeks to annihilate historical time:

“For [capitalists], time can have only one dimension: that of the eternal present. The past for them is nothing more than the backward projection and blind justification of the established present, and the future is only the self-contradictorily timeless extension of the – no matter how destructive and thereby also self-destructive – ‘natural order’ of the here and now, encapsulated in the constantly repeated mindless dictum according to which ‘there is no alternative’. Perversely, that is supposed to sum up the future.”

(Mészáros, 2008: 21)

Abstract time v. concrete time

• Clock time• Measures labour• Qualitatively homogenous• Indifferent to material

content• Imposed on experience• Focus on exchange-values• Driven by profit• Production space• Masculinist

• Process time• Measured by labour• Qualitatively variable• Defined by material content• Lived through experience• Focus on use-values• Driven by needs• Social reproduction space• Feminised

Time-space is gendered in patriarchal capitalism

Concrete time-space

• Cf. Levinas’ stereotype of feminine nurture• Not ‘outside’ capitalist social relations• Capitalism constitutes time-space as a means

of constituting itself – our social universe• Concrete time-space always exists in

dialectical relationship to historical and abstract time-space

• Time-space-ethics nexus of human service/ education work

Human service work

• Won by struggle: the ‘social wage’ – precarious • Gendered space – feminised• Concrete time has inherent ethical dimension• Work remains within capitalist social relations• Tension between concrete and abstract time• …especially in times of economic cutbacks• …when use-value (i.e. ethics) is re-ordered

from care to control

Time-space-ethics of education/human services

Circulation of value (Spatial and temporal mobilisation)

Capital investment

Commodity production(Production space,

abstract time)

Exchange-valueConsumption

Taxes/state debt

Reproduction of labour powerSocial expenditure

(Living space, process time)

Use-value/ethicsCare Control

Ethics work in time-space

• Ethics of occupational roles• Partly professions/practitioners• But also policy-makers & institutions who

pre-construct occupational roles• Managerialist audit culture re-orders work, re-

configures roles• …and thereby re-orders time-space-ethics• …generating ‘ethics work’

Career guidance: a de-boundaried teaching occupation

• Moved into new Connexions service in 2001• From specialist to generic infrastructure• From specialist to generic occupational role• From universal to targeted service (NEET)• Severely under-resourced from the start• Chaotic re-structuring in 2008• Severely hit by current austerity drive

Historical time-space

• Declining rate of profit since 1960s• Welfare-to-work policies• Collapse of fictitious capital in 2008, growth of

state debt• Austerity drive impacts more sharply on ‘living

space’• Exclusion of young people least able to

participate in production/consumption

Abstract-concrete time tensions

• High caseloads affect quality of work• Working the boundaries of ethical practice• Doing ‘ethics work’• Who to help?• How to help them?• Choosing the lesser evil – creative

accounting

Re-ordering ethics: from care to control

• Few or no resources to resolve social, economic and educational problems

• Main resources = for tracking & surveillance• Deeply alienating – ‘working for the Gestapo’• Conflicts with managers• Ethical dilemmas, emotional stress• Crossing boundary out of Connexions – by

choice or otherwise

A ‘politics of we’?

• Risk of isolated, conservative resistance, but also…

• Solidarity with learners – trying to do ‘the right thing’

• Solidarity with co-workers – supporting each other

• Making time/ stretching time/ finding spaces ‘out of the gaze’

• Linking with wider, more radical networks• Time-space-ethics as a nexus for struggle

Key questions

• Analyses of time-space-ethics – Massey and Harvey (Castree, 2009):

• How to recognise capitalism’s time-space regime?

• How does capitalism try to subsume time-spaces of resistance?

• How can we retain the ethical integrity of resistant times-spaces?

• How can they be put to work to generate positive social change?

Helen Colley

h.colley@mmu.ac.uk