Stress and illness are prominent features of work in industrial societies today, where ever more work needs to be done by ever fewer workers. Meanwhile, ever larger numbers of people lack secure work and a regular income because they have been replaced by machines, or their jobs can be done cheaper elsewhere, or they are struggling to survive in a precarious economy.
Time is a central feature of our working lives that is rarely addressed in analyses of trends like these, yet an explicit focus on the social relations of time not only gives us new insights into the stresses and strains involved in the modern world of work; it also indicates the changes that are necessary if we’re going to promote alternative approaches to work and wellbeing.
Matter is the stuff our world is made of and space is the domain in which we operate. Matter and space are negotiated explicitly in the realm of politics and public policy, but what of time and its social relations?
