The time of post-socialism: On the future of an anthropological concept

Abstract

When accounting for changes in the post-socialist era, anthropologists were forced to carefully distinguish between what had remained the same, what had actually changed and what was emerging anew and on its own terms. As a sub-discipline, the anthropology of post-socialism has thereby contributed prominently to theories of time, change and temporal agency. It has also shown that the post-socialist present is, if at all, as determined by its socialist past as it is by its insecure futures. Based on a few ethnographic examples from a former socialist model city in East Germany, and my own experiences as both a post-socialist anthropologist and an anthropologist of post-socialism, I scrutinize the temporal logic of the sub-discipline’s defining concept. I do so by testing its applicability to three objects of anthropological inquiry, and by pondering upon its implications for a more sustained study of the future. The temporal multiplicity that this concept affords, I claim, is crucial for the discipline overall, but demands further scrutiny. Rather than abandoning it, as I and others have previously argued, it is time to rewrite the time of post-socialism with regards to the future.