Browsing by Author "Pusa, Mika"

Time is a concept indispensable to modern life. The point of departure of the thesis is to question the reality of any qualities of time or associated with time - including cases where arguments for reality are based on philosophy or physics. By comparing two ideal models, traditional and modern time, the treatise strives to demonstrate that value and scarcity are not really qualities of time itself but of certain socially constructed realities and world-views. The thesis - an introduction to one branch of anthropology and sociology - contains three levels. In the first place, to put scarcity of time to the test as a criterion of cultural time turns out to be a case study in the sociology of knowledge. A second theme running through the work is to define modernity and modern rationality as a specific kind of cultural time. Finally, attention is drawn to the part that time plays in intra- and intercultural communication and valuation. An analysis of the meaning of clocks, calendars and precious time shows that the (apparent) lack of (temporal) planning and punctuality in the Third World has all too often been reduced to qualities typical of individual, ethnic, or national character.