Making Time, Shaping Time

Abstract

In Chapter 1, we encountered four reasons for taking seriously the various representations of temporality within the Bush administration’s unfolding War on Terror. In the first instance, I argued that such a study would work to supplement and extend existing analyses of the relationships that exist between discourse, terrorism, and counterterrorism. By shedding light on a hitherto-neglected — and critical — aspect of these linkages, I suggested that we would be in a position to acquire a far fuller understanding of the ways in which (un)conventional violences are made both (im)possible and (il)legitimate in particular historical contexts. Second, I claimed that exploring the different ways in which time was constructed in this conflict would also afford us an important alternative perspective from which to engage with, and critique, this war’s apparent necessity, inevitability, and coherence. Third, I argued that our discussion would also likely reveal something quite interesting about the centrality of temporal claims to reproductions of identity, security, and violence far beyond this particular historical juncture. And, finally, I noted that our study would also open space for thinking through temporality itself as an inherently, and necessarily, political phenomenon. Claims to a privileged knowledge of the movement, shape, and drivers of temporality, I argued, will always be political in their both making possible social frameworks of action and in their simultaneously militating against others.