{"title":"Distant time: The future of urbanisation from ‘there’ and ‘then’","authors":"Ayona Datta","doi":"10.1177/20438206241253567","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Recent geographical scholarship has mainly focussed on the disjunctures between linear and cyclical time in urban development. This paper proposes a notion of distant time as a metaphor of temporal power that keeps marginal citizens at a governable distance from the state. Taking the case of Shimla, an erstwhile Summer Capital of colonial India and a popular tourist town in the Himalayas, it argues that distant time emerges from the temporal reordering of ‘native’ settlement on a fragile ecological landscape ravaged by the colonial state, that is then repeated in postcolonial imaginaries of smart urban futures. Reading ‘along the grain’ of colonial archives of incremental housebuilding by the ‘natives’, as well as interviews with current working class residents of Shimla living under threat of demolition from proposed smart city projects, this paper suggests that distant time is also a space for marginal citizens to claim temporal justice. Even as the state engages in temporal distancing through post/colonial planning, marginal citizens use waiting, confusing, and circumventing as tools of temporal arbitrage. They highlight that aspirations for smart urban futures are not just produced in the ‘here and now’ of the present, but also from the ‘there and then’ of different pasts and futures.","PeriodicalId":47300,"journal":{"name":"Dialogues in Human Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Dialogues in Human Geography","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206241253567","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Recent geographical scholarship has mainly focussed on the disjunctures between linear and cyclical time in urban development. This paper proposes a notion of distant time as a metaphor of temporal power that keeps marginal citizens at a governable distance from the state. Taking the case of Shimla, an erstwhile Summer Capital of colonial India and a popular tourist town in the Himalayas, it argues that distant time emerges from the temporal reordering of ‘native’ settlement on a fragile ecological landscape ravaged by the colonial state, that is then repeated in postcolonial imaginaries of smart urban futures. Reading ‘along the grain’ of colonial archives of incremental housebuilding by the ‘natives’, as well as interviews with current working class residents of Shimla living under threat of demolition from proposed smart city projects, this paper suggests that distant time is also a space for marginal citizens to claim temporal justice. Even as the state engages in temporal distancing through post/colonial planning, marginal citizens use waiting, confusing, and circumventing as tools of temporal arbitrage. They highlight that aspirations for smart urban futures are not just produced in the ‘here and now’ of the present, but also from the ‘there and then’ of different pasts and futures.
期刊介绍:
Dialogues in Human Geography aims to foster open and critical debate on the philosophical, methodological, and pedagogical underpinnings of geographic thought and practice. The journal publishes articles, accompanied by responses, that critique current thinking and practice while charting future directions for geographic thought, empirical research, and pedagogy. Dialogues is theoretically oriented, forward-looking, and seeks to publish original and innovative work that expands the boundaries of geographical theory, practice, and pedagogy through a unique format of open peer commentary. This format encourages engaged dialogue. The journal's scope encompasses the broader agenda of human geography within the context of social sciences, humanities, and environmental sciences, as well as specific ideas, debates, and practices within disciplinary subfields. It is relevant and useful to those interested in all aspects of the discipline.