Times in Crisis, Times of Crisis: The Temporalities of Europe in Polycrisis

Europe is in polycrisis: Climate, economy, migration, democracy, armed conflict and academia are pertinent fields where crisis abounds. This project explores the temporal registers of crisis, the vernacular articulation of life in turmoil, and the cultural dynamics expressed in crisis contexts.
The central contention is the need to unravel what we term ‘times of crisis’. Centered in anthropology and working across art, history, philosophy and economy, this project critically explores what it means to inhabit crisis, how crisis changes over time, and how crisis is perceived in hindsight. Looking at crises past, present and future, we challenge what it means to live in times of crisis, question the timing of crisis, and consider time before and after crisis. Critically, what distinguishes ‘crisis time’ from ‘normal time’?
Framing current conditions as ‘crisis’ or projecting time itself as being ‘in crisis’ are prevailing sensibilities in much discourse about polycrisis in Europe and beyond. This project offers empirical, methodological and theoretical apparatuses to better analyze what such crisis attentiveness effects, interrogating what the diverse yet now common category of ‘crisis’ accomplishes. Offering ethnographic takes on philosophical questions concerning ‘times of crisis’, each work package addresses three temporal pins – past, present, and future. The work packages focus on individual nodes of polycrisis in three regional settings: Eastern Europe (war and conflict), Mediterranean (economy), Scandinavia (migration), with shared research questions designed to aid comparison and comprehension. Empirically, the project highlights the diverse ways times of crisis are inhabited, methodologically it shows how times of crisis are expressed in art and literature, and theoretically it poses socio-philosophical questions concerning the temporal coordinates of crisis. Beyond the academy, an exhibition will be held in collaboration with the National Museum of Denmark, engaging with local artistic and literary interpretations of times of crisis produced in partner countries.