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14 - Times Alla Turca E Franga

Conceptions of Time and the Materiality of the Late-Ottoman Clock Towers

from Part IV - History and Duration: Making Things Last, Enduring Politics and Organizing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2023

By
Deniz Tunçalp
Edited by
François-Xavier de Vaujany ,
Robin Holt  and
Albane Grandazzi
François-Xavier de Vaujany
Affiliation:
Universite Paris Dauphine-PSL
Robin Holt
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Albane Grandazzi
Affiliation:
Grenoble Ecole de Management
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Summary

The study explores the materiality of clock towers to understand how temporal order was constructed and changed in the late Ottoman Empire. It takes a microhistorical perspective with a critical realist lens. Specifically, it focuses on the 24 clock towers constructed between 1876 and 1909 outside Istanbul, remaining within the national borders of Turkey. In addition, the study has developed case studies of three “exceptional typical” clock towers at Kastamonu, Çorum, and Izmir. Results indicate that these clock towers were symbols of continuous and hybridized changes in the temporal construction of Ottoman societies. The study illustrates how alternative time conceptions can exist, combine, and transform autonomously, constituting a polychronous context. In addition to the Ottoman state, the local elite was central in negotiating and contesting the diffusion of modernity into their realms. The study contributes to understanding the politics of time from a non-industrialized and non-Western historical context.

Keywords

Materialityclock towerscritical realismtime measurement
Type
Chapter
Information
Organization as Time
Technology, Power and Politics
 , pp. 297 - 328
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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