Time a Tripartie Sociotemporal Model

• Main Authors: Halpern, Joel, Christie, T L
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: SelectedWorks 1996
• Subjects: Anthropology; Social and Cultural Anthropology; inuit
• Online Access: https://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/170

This paper outlines and illustrates a model of sociotemporality based upon a tripartite paradigm using the concepts of linearity, cyclicity, and liminality as basic sociotemporal primes. The paper reviews the study of time in anthropology, arguing that much sociocultural anthropology has been concerned with studies focused "on time"—either based upon the analysis of time reckoning systems and concepts of time, or with the use of time as a parametric device to measure social change. The paper suggests that societies and social interaction must be situated "in time"—as processes located upon and determined by the temporal landscape. The application of the model utilizes ethnographic data on Canadian Inuit and South Slav peasants.