Mobile Temporalities

How do different conceptions and contestations of time open up new possibilities for the politics of mobility? Scholars of migration and mobility are increasingly attuned to the use of time as a means of controlling the movement of people: waiting, stoppage, deferral and delay on one hand, and acceleration on the other. Less often is time and its manipulation framed as a form of elusion or liberation. Less often still is time itself submitted to critical inquiry. How do different ways of knowing and ordering time shape conceptions of the past, present and future of mobility? How might we think of time, itself, as mobile?

This website stems from a slow virtual workshop on Time, Mobility and Political Possibility convened in 2021, across five continents and seven different time zones, by Noora Lori, Loren Landau and Anne McNevin. The website features some of the discussions that influenced the conceptualization of that workshop and some of the discussions that arose directly from it. The website also showcases new publications by participants in that workshop. Our hope is that this website can become a focal point for people who are thinking and writing about time, mobility or both and who are interested in the political stakes of doing so.