Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NeT-HiDeA (New Times at Work. Rethinking History and Politics through Delay and Anticipation)
Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31
NeT-HiDeA is a philosophical-political investigation on the articulation between temporalities, history, and the problem of social and political transformation. Assuming the hypothesis that the way human beings use and conceive time and temporality is a properly political issue, the research is articulated along two axes:
1) Reading capitalism as a specific economy of time, as a mode of production that governs time and creates temporal hierarchies. It produces the conditions of gap and delay for individual and collective subjects overwhelmed by phenomena of economic, technological, and social acceleration. The main objective of this axis is understanding if and how the condition of delay experienced by many subjects could be overturned into a condition for anticipating forms of sociality no longer subordinate to the paradigm imposed by capitalism.
2) Reframing the temporal structures of social and political transformations, with special attention to the relationship between the concept of “revolution” and the concept of “institution”.
In this regard, the question of temporalities acquires a specific relevance for investigating any social and political action that wants to produce durable transformations. The main objective of this axis is to frame a new conception of historical time, able to grasp the plurality of individual and collective experiences of time that can support emancipatory action.
By analyzing the temporal stratification of social struggles, the tensions between continuity and discontinuity with the past, as well as the conflicts between different regimes of temporality in philosophical theories of history, NeT-HiDeA showed that political transformation is not only a future-oriented event, but a specific practice of social relation, where the past became a tension field for an emancipatory use of a shared history.
1) Reading capitalism as a specific economy of time, as a mode of production that governs time and creates temporal hierarchies. It produces the conditions of gap and delay for individual and collective subjects overwhelmed by phenomena of economic, technological, and social acceleration. The main objective of this axis is understanding if and how the condition of delay experienced by many subjects could be overturned into a condition for anticipating forms of sociality no longer subordinate to the paradigm imposed by capitalism.
2) Reframing the temporal structures of social and political transformations, with special attention to the relationship between the concept of “revolution” and the concept of “institution”.
In this regard, the question of temporalities acquires a specific relevance for investigating any social and political action that wants to produce durable transformations. The main objective of this axis is to frame a new conception of historical time, able to grasp the plurality of individual and collective experiences of time that can support emancipatory action.
By analyzing the temporal stratification of social struggles, the tensions between continuity and discontinuity with the past, as well as the conflicts between different regimes of temporality in philosophical theories of history, NeT-HiDeA showed that political transformation is not only a future-oriented event, but a specific practice of social relation, where the past became a tension field for an emancipatory use of a shared history.
My work concerns two levels of analysis: a philosophical-conceptual level, and a social-critical one. Staying inside the gap between the universality of philosophical concepts and the analysis of contingent and empirical situations, I made one dimension act on the other.
During my stay at UCSC, I developed the first level proposing a new configuration of the relation between delay and anticipation, through Sartre’s notion of "hysteresis" and Bloch’s concept of "non-synchronicity". On the second level, I mapped the anthropological analyses that deal with reconfigurations of temporality. I focused on the relation to temporality from the Anthropocene’s point of view and in the light of the environmental crisis. I examined anthropological studies on experiences that have turned their back on progress, depending upon fragile collaborations between humans and the devastated world surrounding them, crossing the margins of the capitalist way of life. In these contexts, temporality needs to be understood not only as a human or subjective experience but as a bigger and more complex process that involves humans as well as other-than-humans-beings.
During my Secondment at the EHESS, I focused on how social sciences make temporal experiences visible, working with a research group of sociologists in order to understand how some subjects or social groups (e.g. the homeless or the unemployed people) produce reflexivity with respect to their experience of time; this reflexivity can shift the temporal gaps into resistance or a critical alternative to the logic of capitalist economy of time. Furthermore, I studied the way in which legal disciplines analyse the problem of the legal definition of growing social claims related to the “commons”. Working with some researchers in law oriented by the analyses of Yan Thomas, I studied the role of law as a tool for the duration-institution of the social and political movements, but also as a vehicle to rethinking the relation between the past and the present, the multiplicity of social practices and the autonomy of legal concepts.
Once I returned to the University of Liège, I shared and discuss these scientific acquisitions with the members of the Centre de recherche sur les Matérialités de la Politique (MAP). I took a proactive role in the MAP and in the Groupe d’études sartriennes (GES), coordinating and directing collective research work on several occasions, for example:
1) I organized and directed the annual seminar of Political and Social Philosophy, choosing the topic "Revolutions" and inviting scholars of international renown such as M. Tomba (UCSC) and E. Traverso (University of Cornell, Ithaca).
2) As a member of the GES, I actively participate in the organization of its annual conferences, and in activities related to the edition of yet unpublished Sartrean manuscripts.
The exploitation of the project’s results took place through the publication of 2 monographs; a collective volume under my direction, 4 chapters in collective books, 3 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Also, through participation in international conferences (7) and organization of scientific events such as Workshops, Conferences, and research seminars (9). Non-academic dissemination took place through collaboration with no-profit associations anchored in the Wallonie-Bruxelles Federation. In the form of ateliers or podcasts intended for wide dissemination, I contributed to the debate with society by discussing the following topics: the relation to the past and tradition as a tool of political struggle; the forms of labour in contemporary society and its relationship to individual and collective experiences of the time; the relationship between philosophical concept and political practices.
During my stay at UCSC, I developed the first level proposing a new configuration of the relation between delay and anticipation, through Sartre’s notion of "hysteresis" and Bloch’s concept of "non-synchronicity". On the second level, I mapped the anthropological analyses that deal with reconfigurations of temporality. I focused on the relation to temporality from the Anthropocene’s point of view and in the light of the environmental crisis. I examined anthropological studies on experiences that have turned their back on progress, depending upon fragile collaborations between humans and the devastated world surrounding them, crossing the margins of the capitalist way of life. In these contexts, temporality needs to be understood not only as a human or subjective experience but as a bigger and more complex process that involves humans as well as other-than-humans-beings.
During my Secondment at the EHESS, I focused on how social sciences make temporal experiences visible, working with a research group of sociologists in order to understand how some subjects or social groups (e.g. the homeless or the unemployed people) produce reflexivity with respect to their experience of time; this reflexivity can shift the temporal gaps into resistance or a critical alternative to the logic of capitalist economy of time. Furthermore, I studied the way in which legal disciplines analyse the problem of the legal definition of growing social claims related to the “commons”. Working with some researchers in law oriented by the analyses of Yan Thomas, I studied the role of law as a tool for the duration-institution of the social and political movements, but also as a vehicle to rethinking the relation between the past and the present, the multiplicity of social practices and the autonomy of legal concepts.
Once I returned to the University of Liège, I shared and discuss these scientific acquisitions with the members of the Centre de recherche sur les Matérialités de la Politique (MAP). I took a proactive role in the MAP and in the Groupe d’études sartriennes (GES), coordinating and directing collective research work on several occasions, for example:
1) I organized and directed the annual seminar of Political and Social Philosophy, choosing the topic "Revolutions" and inviting scholars of international renown such as M. Tomba (UCSC) and E. Traverso (University of Cornell, Ithaca).
2) As a member of the GES, I actively participate in the organization of its annual conferences, and in activities related to the edition of yet unpublished Sartrean manuscripts.
The exploitation of the project’s results took place through the publication of 2 monographs; a collective volume under my direction, 4 chapters in collective books, 3 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Also, through participation in international conferences (7) and organization of scientific events such as Workshops, Conferences, and research seminars (9). Non-academic dissemination took place through collaboration with no-profit associations anchored in the Wallonie-Bruxelles Federation. In the form of ateliers or podcasts intended for wide dissemination, I contributed to the debate with society by discussing the following topics: the relation to the past and tradition as a tool of political struggle; the forms of labour in contemporary society and its relationship to individual and collective experiences of the time; the relationship between philosophical concept and political practices.
Compared to the state of the art, NeT-HiDeA has made three important developments:
1) Sartre and Bloch have both focused on the problem of the intelligibility of history and of its use as a tool in social struggles, but their thoughts have rarely been compared. Comparing their political philosophies, I merged their conceptions of time, history, and dialectics, emancipating the categories of delay and anticipation from the linear reference to a normative time.
2) I addressed the problem of the conceptual relation between revolution and institution through Sartre’s philosophy in new and non-dichotomous terms: the temporality of political change lies beyond the logic of the event and beyond the combination of constituent and constituted power, thus beyond the shaping of social practices by the State.
3) The integration of the problem-based approach, sociology and philosophy of law has progressively brought the problem of the institution to the center of my research: the collective volume that I co-edited (“L’institution Instable”, Hermann, 2021) brings together internationally renowned Sartrean specialists, but also approaches inspired by phenomenology, sociology, and institutional analysis. My monograph “Le passé qui vient. Essai sur la philosophie politique de Jean-Paul Sartre” (Paris, Vrin, 2023, forthcoming) demonstrates that to grasp a political philosophy in Sartre, one must turn to his theory of temporality.
The impact and societal implications of my research concern the possibility of forging conceptual tools useful for understanding contemporary emancipatory practices, but also to provide actors directly involved in social and political transformation movements with tools to better understand the situation in which they are operating, particularly regarding the capitalist dynamics of the government of temporality.
1) Sartre and Bloch have both focused on the problem of the intelligibility of history and of its use as a tool in social struggles, but their thoughts have rarely been compared. Comparing their political philosophies, I merged their conceptions of time, history, and dialectics, emancipating the categories of delay and anticipation from the linear reference to a normative time.
2) I addressed the problem of the conceptual relation between revolution and institution through Sartre’s philosophy in new and non-dichotomous terms: the temporality of political change lies beyond the logic of the event and beyond the combination of constituent and constituted power, thus beyond the shaping of social practices by the State.
3) The integration of the problem-based approach, sociology and philosophy of law has progressively brought the problem of the institution to the center of my research: the collective volume that I co-edited (“L’institution Instable”, Hermann, 2021) brings together internationally renowned Sartrean specialists, but also approaches inspired by phenomenology, sociology, and institutional analysis. My monograph “Le passé qui vient. Essai sur la philosophie politique de Jean-Paul Sartre” (Paris, Vrin, 2023, forthcoming) demonstrates that to grasp a political philosophy in Sartre, one must turn to his theory of temporality.
The impact and societal implications of my research concern the possibility of forging conceptual tools useful for understanding contemporary emancipatory practices, but also to provide actors directly involved in social and political transformation movements with tools to better understand the situation in which they are operating, particularly regarding the capitalist dynamics of the government of temporality.