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bloody time and bloody scarcity: capitalism, authority, and the transformation of temporal experience in a Papua New Guinea village
Author(s) -
SMITH MICHAEL FRENCH
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1982.9.3.02a00040
Subject(s) - scarcity , capitalism , indigenous , politics , sociology , political economy , perception , economics , market economy , political science , law , epistemology , ecology , philosophy , biology
This article argues that the development of perceptions that time is scarce is not simply the result of increases in the quantity of demand for a finite supply of time. Rather, in Koragur Village, Papua New Guinea, it is part of the larger process of incorporation into a capitalist political economy. The imposition of authoritative control over temporal conduct by external authorities and by new kinds of local leaders, together with the spread of the idea that time is scarce, are seen as mutually determining moments of this process of incorporation. Villagers who retain indigenous temporal orientations see the unwelcome imposition of authority where a Western observer would see “time scarcity.” These perceptions by villagers are, in a sense, more accurate than those of more acculturated individuals. Moreover, the process of acquiring industrial capitalist modes of thinking about, and experiencing, time is inseparable from struggles over the acceptance of new kinds of relations of authority. [temporal orientations, scarcity, economizing, leadership, peripheral capitalism]