Time-space and ethics work

1. Time-space and ethics work Helen Colley Manchester Metropolitan University Education and Social Research Institute

2. Seddon, Henriksson & Niemeyer Learning and work and the politics of working life, Routledge 2010: • Re-ordering of work in human service occupations inc. education… • …leads to occupational boundary work • ‘Occupation’ vs. ‘profession’ • Gramsci’s notion of ‘passive revolution’ • But focus on space/place • What about time?

3. Time, space and ethics My four key premises: • Space-time / time-space • Time(-space)  ethics • Sociological vs. philosophical perspective • Accounting for patriarchal, racist capitalism

4. Outline of presentation • Philosophical views of time + ethics • Dialectical materialist view of time-space + ethics – David Harvey • How contemporary time-space re-orders ethics of education work • Examples of the boundary work this generates – youth support work • Questions about socially transformative change

5. Thinking about time and ethics • Taken-for-granted: • background ‘flow’ • learn from past, form goals in present, pursue them for future • teleological analysis of identity and agency • Exemplified in ESRC Teaching & Learning Research Programme (esp. Learning Lives) • Deeply problematic assumptions about intentionality and agency (Bourdieu)

6. Thinking about time and ethics Heidegger: • Being-in-Time, Being-unto-Death • the present as inauthentic • spatiality/materiality/sociality as corrupting • solipsistic orientation to ultimate future (death) as autonomous, asocial ethic • masculinist heroic mastery (Chanter, 2001)

7. Thinking about time and ethics Levinas vs. Heidegger: • time entails social interaction with Others • metaphysics of presence, materiality, desire • ethics of social solidarity • elevation of feminine care as ethical ideal • but fails to recognise historical oppression of women – remains patriarchal • generalised, abstract ‘Other’ erases material experiences of inequality (Sikka 2001, Hewitt 1997)

8. Thinking about time and ethics Massey: • Cf. Foucault – vs. notions of space as fixed/dead and time as dynamic • change  mobilisation of both time and space • relational view of space-time • space-time produces/is produced by difference • ethical/political stance views difference as source of progressive social change • but neglects capitalism (Castree, 2009)

9. What about the times-spaces in which we live? • capitalist economic crisis • austerity • intensifying inequalities • difference as source of wealth

10. The tyranny of capital’s time Time is everything, man is nothing, he is at most time’s carcase. Quality no longer matters. Quantity decides everything; hour for hour; day for day. (Marx, cited in Mészáros, 2008)

11. Time-space in capitalism • David Harvey and others… • Time in three registers • Historical time • Abstract clock time • Concrete process time • Space in two registers • ‘Production’ space (commodities) • ‘Living’ space (social reproduction) • All time-space is constituted through praxis, not external to praxis

12. Abstract time Abstract time seeks to annihilate historical time: “For [capitalists], time can have only one dimension: that of the eternal present. The past for them is nothing more than the backward projection and blind justification of the established present, and the future is only the self-contradictorily timeless extension of the – no matter how destructive and thereby also self-destructive – ‘natural order’ of the here and now, encapsulated in the constantly repeated mindless dictum according to which ‘there is no alternative’. Perversely, that is supposed to sum up the future.” (Mészáros, 2008: 21)

13. Clock time Measures labour Qualitatively homogenous Indifferent to material content Imposed on experience Focus on exchange-values Driven by profit Production space Masculinist Process time Measured by labour Qualitatively variable Defined by material content Lived through experience Focus on use-values Driven by needs Social reproduction space Feminised Abstract time v. concrete time Time-space is gendered in patriarchal capitalism

14. Concrete time-space • Cf. Levinas’ stereotype of feminine nurture • Not ‘outside’ capitalist social relations • Capitalism constitutes time-space as a means of constituting itself – our social universe • Concrete time-space always exists in dialectical relationship to historical and abstract time-space • Time-space-ethics nexus of human service/ education work

15. Human service work • Won by struggle: the ‘social wage’ – precarious • Gendered space – feminised • Concrete time has inherent ethical dimension • Work remains within capitalist social relations • Tension between concrete and abstract time • …especially in times of economic cutbacks • …when use-value (i.e. ethics) is re-ordered from care to control

16. Time-space-ethics of education/human services Circulation of value (Spatial and temporal mobilisation) Capital investment Taxes/state debt Commodity production (Production space, abstract time) Reproduction of labour power Social expenditure (Living space, process time) Exchange-value Consumption Use-value/ethics Care Control

17. Ethics work in time-space • Ethics of occupational roles • Partly  professions/practitioners • But also  policy-makers & institutions who pre-construct occupational roles • Managerialist audit culture re-orders work, re-configures roles • …and thereby re-orders time-space-ethics • …generating ‘ethics work’

18. Career guidance: a de-boundaried teaching occupation • Moved into new Connexions service in 2001 • From specialist to generic infrastructure • From specialist to generic occupational role • From universal to targeted service (NEET) • Severely under-resourced from the start • Chaotic re-structuring in 2008 • Severely hit by current austerity drive

19. Historical time-space • Declining rate of profit since 1960s • Welfare-to-work policies • Collapse of fictitious capital in 2008, growth of state debt • Austerity drive impacts more sharply on ‘living space’ • Exclusion of young people least able to participate in production/consumption

20. Abstract-concrete time tensions • High caseloads affect quality of work • Working the boundaries of ethical practice • Doing ‘ethics work’ • Who to help? • How to help them? • Choosing the lesser evil – creative accounting

21. Re-ordering ethics: from care to control • Few or no resources to resolve social, economic and educational problems • Main resources = for tracking & surveillance • Deeply alienating – ‘working for the Gestapo’ • Conflicts with managers • Ethical dilemmas, emotional stress • Crossing boundary out of Connexions – by choice or otherwise

22. A ‘politics of we’? • Risk of isolated, conservative resistance, but also… • Solidarity with learners – trying to do ‘the right thing’ • Solidarity with co-workers – supporting each other • Making time/ stretching time/ finding spaces ‘out of the gaze’ • Linking with wider, more radical networks • Time-space-ethics as a nexus for struggle

23. Key questions • Analyses of time-space-ethics – Massey and Harvey (Castree, 2009): • How to recognise capitalism’s time-space regime? • How does capitalism try to subsume time-spaces of resistance? • How can we retain the ethical integrity of resistant times-spaces? • How can they be put to work to generate positive social change?

24. Helen Colley h.colley@mmu.ac.uk