Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T19:33:00.042Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 11 - Time–Space Compression

The Long View

from Part II - Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Joel Evans
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Get access

Summary

Time-Space Compression is one of the most influential concepts in globalization theory. Focused by David Harvey in 1990 on spatial shrinkage and temporal simultaneity, it offered an account of the metaphorical contraction of the globe in relation to travel speed. This chapter explores its legacy, and argues that, since 1990, the economic and cultural meanings of time-space compression have shifted towards a conception of uncertainty: it aims to show that the vocabulary has changed in order to break with a kind of complicity that social theory has identified between capitalist expansion and social-scientific commentary. Time-space compression has turned away from the emphasis on global simultaneity, towards questions about the knowability of the future. Bernard Stiegler is one theorist who has developed a new account of epochal temporality for the digital age which has transformed canonical notions of time-space compression by giving them a future orientation. Stiegler’s work also offers us ways of thinking about narrative as a form of belatedness, and about the way that the interval between events and their reception might be eliminated by the inner forms of narrative and the novel.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×