A ‘temporal turn’? Proposing time as method

Abstract

Traditionally, researchers almost exclusively approached migration as a spatial phenomenon. But interest in the times and temporalities of migration has been growing. A temporal approach has proved highly effective for visibilising experiences, political claims and agency, and the operation and navigation of power. We now have a flourishing body of empirical and theoretical work on time and migration. This includes work on waiting, temporariness, speeds, futures; the relationships between time, power and migration governance; and the ways mobile people reclaim and reorder their time. This article critically considers this ‘temporal turn’, as part of a broader reckoning of migration research. As ethno-nationalism and anti-immigration politics surge, there is urgency to the critical examination of our work as migration and ethnicity researchers. The article identifies areas of concern regarding the ‘turn’, including the danger of time becoming tokenistic and an empty signifier, or contributing to depoliticisation and othering. The article proposes employing time as an epistemological device, or ‘method’, through which we can interrogate power and rethink futures. In so doing, the turn's pitfalls can be reframed as possibilities, with time’s ubiquitousness and allochronic tendencies harnessed to make the expansive, multi-scalar and political connections required for new conceptual and methodological approaches.