Paper short abstract:

The paper examines how multiple and overlapping temporalities reproduced by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project in the Karoo region of South Africa structure very different ideas about social transformation, development and the future of humanity.

Paper long abstract:

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is a global network development initiative aimed at building the world's largest radio telescope in the Karoo region of South Africa. The SKA is expected to bring about major scientific discoveries, while at the same time promising major social and economic benefits for both the Karoo and South Africa. By looking at how the project reproduces several overlapping temporalities (e.g. cosmological; geological; ecological; agricultural), the paper contextualizes the SKA in the trajectory(ies) of transformation of the Karoo region. Moving beyond an idea of chronological time, the papers attempts to show how different temporalities are constructed and reproduce specificities of the local, national and global context. These are empirically depicted in terms of specific understandings of the past, reflections about the present, as well as aspirations and expectations about the future. Exploring trajectories of social transformation entails acknowledging temporal heterogeneity - and hence causal heterogeneity - as a standpoint for the conceptualization of the multiple interactions between the global, the national and the local. An important methodological consequence is that developmental implications depend on the specificities of the social world within which they take place. Ultimately, the paper attempts to look at how different views around the SKA construct and reproduce ideas about social transformation, development and the future of humanity.