Coevalness

Sharing the same timeframe or being contemporaneous with others. After the work of anthropologist Johannes Fabian, who critiqued how anthropological writing often portrayed non-Western societies as living in an earlier, more “primitive” time.

This “denial of coevalness” tracked an evolutionary, progressivist view that places Western civilisation at the pinnacle of development.

Recognising the coexistence and interconnection of diverse cultures in the present moment. Disrupting linear narratives that position certain groups as “behind” or “ahead” on a universal trajectory of progress.

Multiplicity of lived experiences and knowledges that shape our shared contemporaneity.

• [&] See also: cosmotechnics, pluriverse?

Tags: time