Theories and Politics of Time

The hegemony of linear clock time is shaped by the rationality of efficiency in capitalist societies. The associated time-is-money logic leads to a variety of time conflicts, such as time stress and time poverty for carers, or collective powerlessness in the face of the long-lasting effects of environmental destruction and extractivism. Who has how much and what kind of time available depends mainly on material and socio-political conditions. The distribution of time is gendered and embedded in intersectional inequalities.

Theories of time from queer, feminist, ecological, decolonial, ableism-critical or intersectional perspectives emphasise different temporalities and their hierarchisation in Eurocentric and androcentric capitalism. Difference is temporalised, for example, when hegemonic and linear temporality marks other temporalities as ‘backward’. Terms such as chrononormativity or crip time illustrate how the hegemonic temporality produces heteronormative and ableism-centred standardisations and normalisations of time. Feminist theories of time, for example, emphasise the specificity of the temporality of care, which is characterised by simultaneity, cyclical temporality, and limited predictability. Time and temporality thus play a central role in maintaining hierarchical and intersectional gender relations.

These diverse approaches to time theory point to the necessity of emancipatory and participatory time policies. Feminist time policies aim, for example, at redistributing and reducing wage labour time, slowing down social and political processes, or recognising different temporalities. They raise core questions about social and political participation and analyse the temporal prerequisites for democratic participation processes, especially for feminised care providers and precarious groups that are structurally excluded. In this respect, emancipatory time politics represent an essential lever for democratic participation and thus an effective strategy against accelerationist right-wing and (neo-)fascist politics.

In political science, as in political theory, right-wing populism research, migration research, and international relations, gendered time-theoretical and time-political perspectives remain a research gap. In feminist political science, time theories and time politics tend to be discussed separately and occupy a marginal position. Feminist political science could benefit from interdisciplinary queer theory, decolonial, ableism-critical, ecological and feminist time theories in order to analyse dominant and marginalised time politics. 

This special issue aims to centre the topic of time and politics in feminist political science considerations, especially in the context of growing social and economic inequality and multiple crises. We want to examine the theoretical foundations of time, politics, and gender, as well as the conditions and consequences of time politics from a feminist perspective.

We invite contributions that engage with critical theories and politics of time from different feminist perspectives on time. Possible thematic focuses include feminist perspectives on time theory and time politics concerning social and/or ecological processes of re_production, care relations, participation and democracy, coloniality, ableism, heteronormativity, time and space, or resistant feminist practices.

Abstracts and Contact

Friederike Beier and Hanna Völkle are the editors for this Special Issue. Abstracts of one or two pages should be sent to friederike.beier fu-berlin de and voelkle posteo de or to the editorial office at redaktion femina-politica de by November 30, 2025.

As an intersectional feminist journal, Femina Politica supports scientific work by women and other marginalised gender identities (such as trans*, inter*, non-binary or gender-nonconforming persons) in and outside academia. It invites submissions of abstracts with qualified content. We invite the submission of high-quality abstracts and particularly welcome contributions that go beyond white, Eurocentric, cis-heteronormative feminism.

Submission deadline

The Special Issue editors will select contributions from the abstracts and invite authors to submit full papers. The deadline for manuscripts between 35,000 and 40,000 characters (including spaces, notes, and bibliography), prepared for anonymous double-blind review, is March 15, 2026. Information concerning the author should only be given on the title page. All manuscripts are reviewed by external reviewers (double blind) and editors. If necessary, a third review may be requested. The reviews will be returned by May 15, 2026.The final selection will be based on the (revised) full-length paper. The deadline for the final version is July 15, 2026.