doublethink

  On Delay: A historical and labour-centric reflection   Arun Kumar's interesting piece on time and delay encouraged me to reflect on this subject more historically and also by connecting the past and the present through the prism of labour and law. The historical connectedness also opened up the questions of differentiated trajectories of world-regions, which I reflect upon only briefly and also anecdotally. This is written in the spirit of furthering the conversation rather than offering a critique to what Arun has lucidly described. However, his piece, I think, needs a further probing of the meanings and experiences of delay and waiting not only at the generalized level of 'fast capitalism' but also of historically constituted notions of power and hierarchy, that imbues meaning to practices such as delay and wait, or speed and acceleration. Further, living in the age of 'fast capitalism' has created a homogeneized expectation of quick service as the hallmark of...