Conclusion: Time, Consumption and Societal Problems

Abstract

The concluding chapter summarizes the core arguments by reviewing three themes that run throughout the preceding chapters: the dominance of the clock, commodification and acceleration in framing understandings of time; coordination and synchronization of everyday activities and the declining strength of collectively timed events; and, the formation and reproduction of socio-temporal rhythms through the organization of practices. It highlights three important contributions for social scientific understandings of time and society: the necessity of analysing multiple temporalities; to establish that consumption and temporalities are indivisible; and, temporalities cannot be explained through recourse to the discretionary time allocation choices of individuals. Returning to contemporary societal problems, particularly sustainable consumption and well-being, it is argued that conventional approaches which treat time as an objective variable to be intervened in—by substituting, extending, dis-placing or resisting the allocation of activities in (clock) time—overlook the capacity of ‘temporal thinking’ for providing solutions to societal problems. Rather, focus on the organization of practices and the socio-temporal rhythms that they shape offers alternative options for addressing major societal issues. Such an approach would place emphasis on the temporal alignment of practices and re-institution of collectively timed events.