Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the temporal politics of "time-bound" construction projects in India. It argues that such attempts to render construction projects temporally predictable relies not on the wholesale adoption of a homogeneous time, but rather on the complex negotiations of multiple temporalities.

Paper long abstract:

Construction projects draw together diverse materials, machines, and workers, enveloping them within the carefully regimented space-time of a "site." In India, as elsewhere, these projects are notorious for running over time and over budget, as would-be tenants can wait sometimes up to ten years after a promised completion date. While the government has begun to pass legislation demanding tighter timelines Indian firms have also felt pressure to present their operations as efficient and predictable in order to obtain lucrative deals with foreign real estate investors. The project managers, engineers, and industry experts I spoke to summed up this process by noting that in the current context projects had to be "time-bound," that is adhering to the projected timeline outlined in a plan. This paper explores the temporal politics of such projects. It argues that the imperative to render construction projects temporally predictable relies not on the wholesale adoption of a homogeneous time, but rather on the complex negotiations of multiple temporalities. The project-form relies on even as it semiotically erases heterogeneous temporalities of kinship, migration, and debt. The genres of paperwork and remuneration that mark a construction site as "time-bound" rely, in practice, on social temporalities beyond the project-form. Yet in the image of the "time-bound" project produced in reports and account books, these heterogeneous times disappear into the sequential completion of the project. Focusing on the implementation of the project-form itself elucidates the orchestration and contestation of diverse temporalities at stake in economic development.