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The Natural and Cultural Invariants of the Representation of Time in Face of Globalization

Current attempts to globalize the economy and politics of our inhabited world should not be considered as an aggressive challenge to any particular cultural tradition. Anthropologists and sociologists of the 20th century have been inclined to exaggerate a supposed incompatibility between the representations and perceptions of time which are characteristic of traditional cultures and the present globalization of human society, globalization that is indeed a by-product of the scientific rationality which has spread throughout the West. For, despite undeniable differences, the contents of all human cultures, with regard to the representation of time, are characterized by elements which are derived from three natural invariants (biorhythms, ages of life and learning) and seven cultural invariants (simultaneity, temporal language, conduct of narrative, myth of time, calendars, natural clocks, artificial clocks).

Key Words: globalization • sociology of time • traditions • time invariants • universal time

Time & Society, Vol. 9, No. 2-3, 303-317 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/0961463X00009002010


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