The Spatialization of Metric Time

Abstract

In this paper, I address the entrenchment of metric time in the West wherein clock time came to measure not only the surface of bodies but also the space of human activity. I trace two specific sets of practices which both reflected and propelled this increasing spatialization of time: the conquest and demarcation of territories and oceans in the first instance; and, in the second, labouring activities and the discipline of private life. The questions which this paper raises, finally, relate to the political and ethical configurations in such a temporal regime.