Temporal Turbulence in the Polycrisis: Editors’ Introduction to the Special Section

This introduction to the special issue “Temporal Turbulence in the Polycrisis” examines how the contemporary polycrisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ongoing colonial legacies challenges conventional understandings of time and temporality. The authors argue that environmental crises cannot be fully understood as technical or future-oriented problems but must be situated within the long historical trajectories of colonialism, capitalism, and ecological exploitation. They explore how dominant political, legal, and corporate actors often reinforce temporal frameworks that obscure these connections, while emphasizing the importance of temporal plurality, or “pluriversality,” for understanding the roots of the current crisis and imagining alternative futures. The contributions to the special issue call for a reimagining of the temporal assumptions and logics that shape the present, while pointing toward more plural, relational, and decolonial approaches to addressing intensifying political, social, and ecological turbulence.