Journalartikel

Jahr der Veröffentlichung: 2021

Seiten: 223-246

Zeitschrift: Time & Society

Bandnummer: 30

Heftnummer: 2

ISSN: 0961-463X

eISSN: 1461-7463

Open Access Status: Hybrid

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X20987965

Verlag: SAGE Publications

Abstract: 
This article seeks to materialize social theories of modern temporalities. It proposes a tempo-material analysis of carbon resources like coal, oil, and gas to illuminate how fossil materialities both underpin and undermine modern temporalities and introduce the notion of fossil modernity to evoke an understanding of the modern composed of multiple conflicting modes of material temporality. Fossil resources (fossil fuels and petrochemical substances) drive the pace and progressive perspective of modernity. The residuals of these resources (CO2, plastic waste, and petrochemical toxins) confront societies with long-lasting ecological damage. Fossil fuels helped to produce the expectation of growth and endless possibility. Fossil residuals create a horizon of ecological liabilities in which past options have become future obligations. This renders the pretences of "modernization" understood as a process of constant renewal and innovation problematic. The article argues that modern societies cannot simply overcome their material-temporal predicaments through "decarbonization" because even after a shift to solar power, organic agriculture, and sustainable plastics, the fossil past will continue to influence, inform, and incite social operations. The article thus shows how different responses to the problems of fossil modernity need to go back to and emerge from the material residues of the past: this goes for bio-capitalist projects seeking to "recycle" the entropic temporality of fossil residuals as well as for environmental justice movements that decipher these residuals as indexes of social asymmetries and call for socio-ecological "redistribution."

Harvard-Zitierstil: Folkers, A. (2021) Fossil modernity: The materiality of acceleration, slow violence, and ecological futures, Time & Society, 30(2), Article 0961463X20987965. pp. 223-246. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X20987965

APA-Zitierstil: Folkers, A. (2021). Fossil modernity: The materiality of acceleration, slow violence, and ecological futures. Time & Society. 30(2), Article 0961463X20987965, 223-246. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X20987965