Stepping out of time: collective reworkings of everyday temporalities

Is it possible to create a space that resists capitalist notions of time? In a world of ever-increasing busyness, it can feel as if time is under constant intensification. We examine what it means to step out of time in land-based communities. Using real-world examples drawn from empirical data, we consider ways in which these communities prefigure post-capitalist lifeworlds that challenge neoliberal rationalities. This paper explores how collective reworkings of time, shared tasks, and activities, enables eco-communities to adopt practices that align with seasonal rhythms and non-linear temporalities. We explore these reworkings through three examples in practice; the generation of collective time, the role of rhythm and pace, and experiences of non-linear transformations. Through the collectivizing of tasks, it is possible to observe how shared time can be experienced differently. As land-based communities build connections with the land, seasons, and non-human temporalities, they create alternative rhythms which in turn influences how time is prioritized and ‘spent’. We examine the tensions and contradictions and question the narrative that these reworkings necessarily always entail a ‘slowing down’. Time in eco communities is complex and non-linear, creating openings for prefigurative and hopeful relations with time.