Plastic Time: An Introduction.
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| Title: | Plastic Time: An Introduction. |
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| Authors: | O'Hare, Patrick (AUTHOR), Irvine, Richard D. G. (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Social Analysis. 2025, Vol. 69 Issue 3, p1-23. 23p. |
| Subjects: | Plastics, Time, Waste recycling, Time perspective, Mass production, Geological time scales, Anthropology |
| Abstract: | The study of plastics reveals a disjuncture in time. Plastic production draws on resources from our deep geological past while driving an accumulation of waste that will survive into the deep future as a marker of our geological agency. Yet the apparently infinite replaceability of plastics narrows our horizons to the present of the eternally new. The ubiquity and disposability of plastic instills in consumers a time sense that is focused on present usage, disconnected from its oily origins and future fate. This introduction reviews the literature around the anthropology of plastic and argues that it has the potential to reinvigorate classic debates about the anthropology of time. We call for a temporal reckoning with the consequences of the mass production of plastic and its long-term destabilizing implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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| Abstract: | The study of plastics reveals a disjuncture in time. Plastic production draws on resources from our deep geological past while driving an accumulation of waste that will survive into the deep future as a marker of our geological agency. Yet the apparently infinite replaceability of plastics narrows our horizons to the present of the eternally new. The ubiquity and disposability of plastic instills in consumers a time sense that is focused on present usage, disconnected from its oily origins and future fate. This introduction reviews the literature around the anthropology of plastic and argues that it has the potential to reinvigorate classic debates about the anthropology of time. We call for a temporal reckoning with the consequences of the mass production of plastic and its long-term destabilizing implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| ISSN: | 0155977X |
| DOI: | 10.3167/sa.2025.690301 |
