Understandings of temporality and of progress provide information on time scales, imaginations of transience and eternity, and the reproduction of social structure. Time in the liberal view moves linearly toward a future of progress, and it presumes that rational actors optimally allocate time to market and non-market activities.

The RU Temporality poses three questions:

1. Which contestations are related to temporality?

Among the time-related challenges to the liberal script is the fact that capitalist markets and democracy tend to favour short-term rewards over long-term investment. Similarly, the speed of global financial markets contrasts with the slower process of political decision-making. In essence, liberal temporality has been contested as a foreign cultural imposition that emphasizes endless material progress and monetary wealth at the expense of sustainable development and of different regional and cultural temporal perspectives.

2. Which temporal-related causes drive contestations?

Causes include tension between future-oriented values against present-oriented norms. For instance, an individual’s time spent with work, family and leisure is subordinated to that of the capitalist market. Moreover, technology’s added efficiency, a product of the liberal script, comes at the expense of employment availability, which in turn produces contestation of liberal capitalism. The RU Temporality will elaborate on the interplay of different factors contributing to such contestations.

3. How do time-related contestations impact the liberal order?

The mentioned contestations can alter how individuals use leisure and work time or engage in social relations. They also uncover the lack of synchronization between technological, entrepreneurial and regulatory development. Yet above all, contestations of the liberal time script allow us to critically review debates on economic and ecological sustainability.

With its focus on alternative notions of time and temporal horizons, The RU Temporality relates to sustainable development as one of the global challenges of the 21^st century. While challengers assume that the linear view of progress over time is no longer tenable, sustainable development also contains a narrative of hope. It suggests that solutions (technological, but also institutional and behavioural ones) can be found to overcome the challenges of climate change, ecological degradation, and loss of biodiversity.

Research Projects

Varieties of Diversity Scripts
Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Yasemin Soysal, Prof. Dr. Kathrin Zippel
Sep 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025 Objects from Afar and Sustainable Liberal Identity - The Contestation of Material Representation in National Museums of the Global North
Prof. Dr. Philipp Lepenies, Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig, Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckert, Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht
Nov 01, 2022 — Aug 31, 2025 Negotiating the Future of Education: The UNESCO’s Futures of Education-initiative and the OECD’s Future of Education and Skills 2030-initiative
Prof. Dr. Florian Waldow, Prof. Dr. Tobias Berger, Prof. Dr. Marcelo Carus, Walter Fritsch, Ana Werkstetter Caravaca
Feb 01, 2021 — Feb 14, 2024 ‘Transformative Constitutionalism’ and the Borderlines of Liberalism
Prof. Dr. Tobias Berger, Prof. Dr. Philipp Dann, Vikram Aditya Narayan, Uday Vir Garg
Jan 01, 2020 — Dec 31, 2023 Gender, Borders, Memory: Contestation of the Liberal Script in the Catalan Separatist Movement
Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig, Prof. Dr. Gülay Çağlar, Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Johannes Heß, Tobias Klee
Sep 01, 2020 — Aug 31, 2023 High Hopes and Broken Promises: Young Adult Life Courses in Senegal
Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckert, Prof. Dr. Anette Fasang, Dr. Noella Binda Niati
Aug 07, 2020 — Aug 06, 2023 Debating the Legitimacy of Borders: How the Admission or Refoulement of Refugees is Justified Across the World
Prof. Dr. Marianne Braig, Dr. Daniel Drewski, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Gerhards, Prof. Dr. Steffen Mau
Oct 01, 2019 — Sep 30, 2022