“Time is money” is more than a familiar phrase. It marks a moment in the history of our relationship with time: the moment when the clock became an instrument for assigning value to time. Industrial modernity taught us to divide time, calculate it, discipline it, and make it productive. Hours acquired a price; minutes became measurable units of efficiency. Gradually, the language of the factory and the workplace entered everyday life. We began to speak of time as something we spend, save, invest, lose, borrow, give, or waste. The everyday vocabulary suggests that time has come to resemble a currency, one which is intangible, constantly circulating, unequally distributed, and implicated in the organization of social life. Time became a peculiar kind of wealth. We inhabit it, but cannot possess it. We exchange it without being able to store it. We invest it without knowing its return. It disappears at the very moment we use it. It is within this paradox that the concept of time capital takes shape.
From a theoretical perspective, the concept of time capital has been placed at the center of a line of inquiry that uses performative mathematical formalizations to gain insights into the complexities of social life (Preda, 2013; Matei and Preda, 2019, 2020; Preda and Matei, 2020, 2023). This approach specifically emphasizes that time capital functions as a resource that people and societies can invest, accumulate, and exchange for other forms of capital (such as economic, social, or cultural capital). Understanding society through the lens of time capital is an ambitious interdisciplinary project that starts from the development of various methodologies and instruments able to capture the time-based convertibility processes underlying power dynamics, social stratification, cultural development, and other dimensions of human experience.
Despite its permanence and continuity, time capital, unlike human, cultural, or social capital, has not received as much scholarly attention or exploration. While human, cultural, and social capital have been extensively studied in relation to their influence on social structures, power dynamics, and individual agency, the concept of time capital remains relatively underdeveloped. However, the reality of time capital is subject to significant questioning and critique; its existence and impact are debated, with some questioning whether it holds the same tangible value as other forms of capital or operates on a level that can be meaningfully analyzed across social, economic, cultural, technological, and institutional contexts.
In this context, we invite scholars and researchers from across disciplines to explore the still-unmapped territory of time capital, to question its theoretical boundaries, search for ways of making it visible and measurable, and consider how it takes shape in practice. The following questions are intended not as fixed coordinates, but as points of departure for this exploration:
1. What are the theoretical and conceptual foundations of time capital, and how do they relate to broader theories of capital, knowledge, and value? How does the emergence of time capital reflect broader debates on the nature of work, labor, and capitalism? In what ways does time capital challenge traditional distinctions between material and immaterial forms of wealth? Under which conditions can we talk about the reality of time as a specific form of capital? Is time capital a universal asset, or is it inherently tied to specific social and cultural contexts?
2. How does the concept of time capital align or conflict with Marxist and critical theories of class? How has the commodification of time evolved across history and in different economic systems? What are the implications of the commodification of time for social structure? What role does the commodification of time play in everyday life, and how does it intersect with issues of inequality, social justice, and access to resources? How are marginalized communities particularly impacted by the commodification of time in both local and global contexts? How are gender, age, race and other aspects of identity linked with the social construction of time as a form of capital? How can we critically and ethically analyze the commodification of time?
3. In what ways does artificial intelligence and similar algorithms challenge the common understanding of time capital? How do they reshape the temporal patterns that influence the production and consumption of goods and services? How do the technologically-mediated forms of time measurement influence labor, class relations, and social structures in hyper-digitalized economies? In what ways does the constant monitoring of individuals’ time (e.g., in digital workspaces or social media) reflect broader market dynamics?
4. How do power structures influence social conceptions of time capital, and how is time capital used as a tool of control and discipline in both public and private life? How are the dynamics of time capital related to issues of power and governance? What are the potential counter-movements or forms of resistance against the commodification of time in various sectors (e.g., education, healthcare, housing, research, etc.)? In what ways do the politics of time capital introduce new temporalities, and how are these timeframes used to exert control or discipline populations?
We encourage submissions from across the social sciences, humanities, economics, philosophy, cultural studies, political science, communication and media studies, technology studies, and related fields that explore the theoretical and methodological foundations of time capital. By critically engaging with these themes from different disciplinary perspectives, contributors can help improve our understanding of time capital, in particular, and time, in general, and their implications for contemporary societies and human experience.
The conference seeks to place time, temporality and time capital on the shared map of interdisciplinary inquiry, creating a meeting point for research teams that approach time through different conceptual and methodological lenses. Rather than allowing these lines of inquiry to run in parallel, the conference aims to create confluences between them, to connect questions, methods, and research traditions that rarely occupy the same space. These confluences are intended to extend beyond the conference itself. The event is conceived as a point of departure for a dedicated interdisciplinary working group and for new links across international research networks. In this way, the conference becomes part of a longer trajectory: one that connects existing work, opens paths for collaboration, and creates the institutional ground from which future research on time, temporality, and time capital can grow.
We therefore invite proposals in three formats: individual papers (abstracts for conference presentations based on completed research or work in progress), panels (a set of papers addressing a shared theme, presented in sequence and followed by discussion), and round tables (open, moderated discussions around a common theme, question, or problem). We particularly welcome proposals that create connections across disciplinary boundaries and open new conversations around time, temporality, and time capital.
References
Matei, Ș. and Preda, M. (2019) ‘When Social Knowledge Turns Mathematical – The Role of Formalisation in the Sociology of Time’, Time & Society, 28(1), pp. 247–272.
Matei, Ș. and Preda, M. (2020) ‘Time capital as a social imaginary’, Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, 11(1), pp. 51–58.
Preda, M. (2013) ‘Time Capital and Social Gravity: Two New Concepts for Sociology of Time’, in Pirani, B. and Smith, T. (eds) Body and Time: Bodily Rhythms and Social Synchronism in the Digital Media Society. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 22–40.
Preda, M. and Matei, Ș. (2020) ‘Time Capital in Strategic Planning and Sustainable Management’, Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 16(61), pp. 105–124.
Preda, M. and Matei, Ș. (2023) ‘Teaching time as a social imaginary. Using speculative fabulation to deconstruct the hegemonic temporalities of modernity’, Time & Society, 32(3), pp. 317–335.