Beyond Hysteresis, Theorizing Mismatch as an Apparatus of Power

• In Event: 3246 - Theories of Interaction Orders and Ordered Interactions

Abstract

Bourdieu’s notion of hysteresis overlooks the fundamental temporal discontinuities heralded by colonization and accelerated by globalization. Adopting a postcolonial perspective I engage in a recalibration of Bourdieu’s theory to outline an alternate structure of mismatch besides lag. Drawing on fieldwork conducted amongst Karachi-based women flight attendants, marginalized actors in a postcolonial setting, I analyze an important episode of mismatch observed in the field, one that was structured by the ongoing coexistence of competing time maps, rather than lagging dispositions. Since powerful actors in the field site deployed mismatch to toggle between competing time maps, undertaking disjunctive action to promote certain modes and methods of understanding a situation at the cost of others, I contend that mismatch may be seen as an apparatus of power, working to redirect cognitive schemas towards one rather than another time map, and in so doing to reassert particular configurations of power.

Author

• Fauzia Husain, University of Virginia