Vtělená temporalita: smyslové vnímání času v antropologické perspektivě

Time is not an objective framework or a mental representation but an embodied, multisensory, and culturally mediated process. The present is a dynamic threshold between past and future, shaped by perception, memory, and anticipation. Vision structures time through movement, hearing through rhythm, and touch through bodily practice; interoception links felt time to physiological states, while smell and taste reactivate the past. Using Bourdieu's habitus, the article connects micro-perception to social rhythms. In late modernity, experiences of time slipping away result from disrupted rhythms and fragmented attention; slowing-down practices restore embodied presence. Time is best understood as a mode of sensory being-in-the-world.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article examines the sensory perception of time from an anthropological perspective and argues that temporality cannot be understood either as an objective physical framework or as a purely mental representation detached from the body.Instead, time is conceptualized as an embodied, multisensory, and culturally mediated process that emerges through the continuous coordination of perception, bodily rhythms, memory, and social practice.Drawing on phenomenology, the anthropology of the senses, embodiment theory, and selected insights from cognitive and neuroscientific research, the article conceptualizes the present not as an immediate point in time but as a dynamically constituted threshold between past and future, shaped by perceptual delay, interpretation, and anticipation.The analysis demonstrates that sensory modalities contribute to temporal experience in modality-specific and uneven ways.Vision structures time through movement and change, hearing through rhythm, tempo, and sequence, while touch and proprioception anchor duration in bodily practice, repetition, and skilled action.Interoception links the felt passage of time to physiological and affective states such as fatigue, pain, or arousal, whereas smell and taste participate in temporal experience primarily through sensate memory, reactivating the past within the present.Building on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus, the article connects micro-temporal processes of perception with macro-level social rhythms, institutions, and regimes of coordination, framing temporal competence as a socially learned, bodily disposition.Finally, the article situates sensory temporality within the context of late modern acceleration, interpreting experiences of "time slipping away" as the result of disrupted rhythms, fragmented attention, and changing sensory regimes.Practices of slowing down are discussed as cultural techniques aimed at restoring rhythm, continuity, and embodied presence.Overall, the article argues that time is best understood as a mode of sensory and bodily being-in-the-world rather than as an abstract temporal measure.