From Future Anticipation to Deep-time Thinking
Von Zukunftsantizipation zu Tiefzeit-Denken
Podcast in English: Hannes Langguth on 4th January 2024
Asserting the production of time inherently implies acknowledging the diversity of temporal experiences that are embedded in different cultures, geographies, economic and political systems. In this second episode, we talk with Hannes Langguth who analyses Time as an (infra)structuring element in the future-making of the urban that allows for crucial insights into the construction of power and inequality. He further suggests we consider time as a key factor in shaping our collective future by specifically taking into account deep-time thinking.
Die Produktion von Zeit setzt voraus, dass man die Vielfalt der zeitlichen Erfahrungen anerkennt, die in verschiedenen Kulturen, Geografien, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Systemen eingebettet sind. In dieser zweiten Folge sprechen wir mit Hannes Langguth, der die Zeit als (infra-)strukturierendes Element bei der Gestaltung der Zukunft des Urbanen analysiert, das entscheidende Einblicke in die Konstruktion von Macht und Ungleichheit ermöglicht. Er schlägt außerdem vor, die Zeit als Schlüsselfaktor für die Gestaltung unserer kollektiven Zukunft zu betrachten, indem wir insbesondere das Denken in Tiefenzeiten berücksichtigen.
RAC: So, happy New Year, happy 2024 to everyone. I’m really happy to be able to be back again at Time Out, at What Next? with Manila. We have a new guest who is going to join us for this opening episode, a session for the new year. Again, I’m Robin Chang from the Chair of Planning Theory and Urban Development. And Manila, maybe you want to say hi as well to our guests.
MdI: Hi, hi everyone.
RAC: Manila is joining us then from Italy today. We have the privilege of speaking with Hannes Langguth, who is based in Germany, but has been conducting some work abroad as well in Asia. I’d like to pass the mic on to Hannes. Maybe you can say a few words about yourself and why you think we have invited you to join us today.
HL: Yeah, hi everybody. And happy New Year, first of all. So, it’s great to be here. And thanks for this opportunity to join the podcast and to talk with you about the role of time, temporalities in urban planning in general, but also related to my work. And so, I’m really looking forward to that. And I guess you have invited me because we have published, me and colleagues, we have published a special issue on time and infrastructure.
RAC: That’s right. So that’s kind of the very simple point of entry. And Hannes, I’m also familiar with some of the work that you’ve been doing based on your PhD through another research group. So, we’re very excited to hear about your trajectory in terms of thinking and working with time and temporality over the years. I guess maybe I’ll let Manila open up the conversation to take on the first question.
MdI: Yeah. Well, let’s start with the first question then, Hannes. Your work in relation to time and temporality begins with a special issue that you and others put together for the journal City back in 2019. You also published an article that makes the bridge between temporality and infrastructure. So, my question is, first of all, how did this collaborative thinking come to fruit with your colleagues on this special topic? And then at the end, you argue that improving the legibility of structures and practices that produce temporalities can help us develop a finer grained account of progressive interventions. So, do you think that this has been achieved? And if so, by whom and how?
HL: OK, thank you, Manila. So, two great questions to start off. And yeah, let me just answer to the first one. Yeah, in 2019, together with my colleagues Hannah Hildebrandt, Natalia Besedovsky and Fritz Julius Grafe, we have published this special issue with the journal City on the topic ‘Time as Infrastructure’. We started with this in 2016. We have worked almost three years on that piece. And it all started in the framework of NYLON. So, me and my co-editors, we were all part of NYLON, which was a PhD research group that was affiliated with the Georg Simmel Center at Humboldt Universität Berlin and was funded back then by the Einstein Foundation Berlin. And yeah, this group was quite an interdisciplinary group, bringing together PhD researchers from different backgrounds, from planning, geography, but also from sociology, from political science, history and so on. And the group was a mixture of a self-organized, non-hierarchical reading group, but also a group that discussed paper drafts and helped each other with qualitative research methods, for example, but also theoretical questions. So, I personally found this a very, very inspiring, and productive collaboration back then, where I learned much about academic work in general, but also how academic collaboration can look like and so on. And the cross-cutting theme of this NYLON group was infrastructures, especially the question of how infrastructures, material, and immaterial infrastructures, shape our social relations and organization, and back in 2016, we linked this question to the topic of time. So, this also implied basic readings we did on the notion of social time as it is defined by, for example, Helga Nowotny and On Barak. So basically, individually experienced, autonomously organized time that is embedded in different histories, different geographies and political systems, and this more plural understanding of different temporalities that overlay and relate to each other. I think this was the moment of birth–as I would call it–for the special issue, the moment where we realized it could be a good idea, an interesting idea to bring together the concepts of time and infrastructure in order to mobilize a more productive lens to analyse contemporary organization processes. This is where all the work started or comes from. And the second question; yeah, it’s a good question. Maybe before I try to answer that, let me quickly summarize what we have worked on with the special issue and why we believe that conceptualizing time as infrastructure does matter. So, the special issue was built on the belief that it could become fruitful to perceive time or temporal dynamics as a new lens to better understand the making of the urban. And this implies a ground laying question of how temporal dynamics, temporalities are shaped, by whom they are shaped and why, and how this also impacts on the production of our everyday urban of today’s cities, etc.
By perceiving time and temporalities as something that structures the urban, the special issue wants to better understand, for instance, uneven power hierarchies, social inequalities that underlie and result from contemporary urbanization.
Hannes Langguth
When we speak about structuring effects, we do also speak about infrastructures as a structuring medium that automatically opens up questions about accessibility, about visibility, about disruption, about spatial connection, but also fragmentation. And it is a very diverse concept. So initially, infrastructure was like describing infrastructural networks like, for instance, roads, pipes, power lines, etc. Later, then more broadly, it addressed the flows of various goods and services which shaped the foundation of modern societies. However, we, with our conception of infrastructure in a special issue, correspond with more recent literature that has also conceived more social or cultural dimensions as structuring elements of societies: for instance, people, political structures, or knowledge. This is where our notion of infrastructure derives from. So, basically, going beyond the material characteristics of infrastructures, the special issue perceives time and temporalities themselves as a form of infrastructure that is shaping our everyday urban and urban societies. Bringing together time and infrastructure enabled us to unveil the temporal workings and dimensions of, for instance, forms of domination or inequalities that are shaped by and result from urbanization. And now I come back to your question: understanding these different dimensions of how time, and temporalities are structuring our everyday urban, helps not only to unveil power structures but also builds the foundation for the development of alternative or more just futures. And let me try to illustrate this, with some examples of my own research. I’m currently looking into Chinese investments in Europe’s green transition, and here I’m focusing on local planning processes of large-scale infrastructure projects. And these processes are usually characterized by very complex settings of cooperation between different actors, transnational investors, various state actors, institutions, planning agencies, local institutional authorities, etc. And because of the overall political relevance of these projects, but also the interests that are dominated by investors, mostly local actors usually face a high degree of uncertainty and a weak agency in these collaborations. But what’s happening here in this case is that local actors, especially local municipalities, take back their agency and control by slowing down, by delaying the planning process. And they started to tie their specific demands to certain decisions within this complex process of localization. And thus, they delay planning and exert pressure on investors to reach better compromises and interventions that serve their individual purposes. This is only a quick example that illustrates how the lens of time as infrastructure can help to show how different temporalities are at play and how these serve certain interventions. In some cases also alternative outcomes and interventions can be realized.
RAC: Thank you for that. Thank you. Comprehensive response. Manila, do you have any comments you want to first tackle?
MdI: I really like this concept of time and infrastructure, it is really, really interesting and that’s the understanding of the multidimensionality of urban planning and urban environments. The fact that so many aspects are involved and the fact that sometimes time can be also, let’s say, a double-edged sword. We can use time to accelerate planning, to follow a path, but we also can use time to slow down processes. It’s interesting how time can be really powerful in this game. Let’s call it a game. Thank you very much.
HL: Yeah, absolutely.
RAC: Thank you. I’ll just piggyback onto that directly then with our next question because it looks at trying to tease out some of the complexities of what you’ve discussed in terms of embedded temporal structures that are tied to development efforts and initiatives and how these might be. What are the ripple effects? How might these look at local levels? So, you’ve already introduced very briefly your current work and looking at the kind of rural developments within the regional context of Eastern Germany. I’d like to invite you to open up on that a little bit more and to discuss what that means exactly. So, what are the types of interactions and dynamics that you follow through these projects and what are the effects that are already at play or coming into play through these infrastructural types of punctures, acupunctural points in the spatial as well as kind of the economic development landscape? And then perhaps maybe once you’ve illustrated that, the more interesting question that I think our listeners might be curious about are the types of tensions and synergies. So, these might be immediate but protracted, also, you know, actually extending into futures or timescales that are a lot further into what is yet to come. And also, how does this look in terms of the interplay at the different types of scales of governance and more localized or regionalized action?
HL: Yeah, well, Robin, this is a very complex question. I’ll try to answer and let’s see where we end up. So maybe again, quickly, I’m currently doing research on the negotiation, planning, implementation of Chinese large-scale green investment projects in the context of the EU’s energy and mobility transition. And I’m particularly focusing on the planning and construction of new gigafactories in Eastern Germany, so large-scale factories for the production of batteries for electric vehicles. And despite all the geopolitical rhetoric and increasing tensions we currently observe between the EU and China, German but also European car manufacturers are very dependent on Chinese firms in this particular field. So, there is a boom of Chinese investment in this particular field. And this is what I’m interested in, how this Sino-German or Sino-EU collaboration is really playing out locally. During the localization process of these projects, there are very different temporal logics or dynamics at work impacting across different scales and institutions. On one hand, these temporal logics relate to the planning process itself, as I have illustrated already earlier with the example of the local municipalities who are slowing down the planning process for their own purposes. But on the other hand, also certain temporalities are underpinning the different ways how these large-scale projects…. I mean, only a few of them are already realized, others are to come in future. So, they are announced. And
temporalities also play a crucial role in how these large-scale projects are getting envisioned, and how they are getting anticipated as future development drivers for the particular region.
Hannes Langguth
And this is what I’m looking into with a recent paper. In the paper, I identify three main temporal logics. These are acceleration, stabilization and waiting. I briefly go through them, so you will also get an idea about different tensions that come to play and different scales. Acceleration, the first logic, spans over a relatively short period of just a few years. What basically happens is that the announcement of the large-scale investment by Chinese investors and always also the big future narratives that come with these investments, trigger a sort of pioneering effect, and impacts in a way disruptively and accelerates habitual timeframes of other institutions and other decision-making processes. So, basically, what this means is more and more other investors, actors, institutions, and also local governments start to invest because they believe in the big boom of this particular region, which they want to benefit from. And just to give you a concrete example, in my research, the purchase of apartments and properties by a range of other Chinese investors dramatically increased immediately after the announcement of the investment. And with this also the fast increase of land and property prices. This temporal logic is characterized by an accelerated array of speculative investments and decision-making processes. With this acceleration logic, time is deregulated and increases the individual risk taking and general uncertainty in the whole region across different domains and institutions. This is basically the logic of capital accumulation, which itself materializes in different forms of speculative urban development. The second temporal logic I identify in my research and with this paper is stabilization. Stabilization is something what appears to be a steady motif in Eastern Germany since the 1990s until today. It relates to the fixation of mainly state level political elites on particularly large investments in outstanding, particularly innovative technology and industry projects as a sort of stabilizing effect in times of structural change. So, when we look back, we can see this logic returns in regular intervals. Either the big promise of so-called ‘blühende Landschaften’ by the German chancellor Helmut Kohl in the 1990s, which was linked to, for instance, large investments in the chemical industry like Leuna or the boom of the solar industry in the years between 2002 and 2010, when large scale industry areas, for example, in Bitterfeld-Wolfen were anticipated as future development drivers. And again, today, many regions of Eastern Germany are forecasted as so-called Germany’s ‘renewable energy valleys‘. What we basically see is that in times of crisis and structural change, there are always the returning big narratives and promises of large investments in innovative technology. And this, at least on a discursive level, has a stabilizing effect and manifests in a path dependency of large-scale industry, which Eastern Germany is trapped in. The third logic which comes into play is the logic of waiting. This logic spans over a period of the last 15 and more years and refers to the retention of certain plots of land for particular large-scale flagship projects. This is inscribed in local development plans at the end of the 1990s, early 2000s, and marks the unconditional will of especially state level governments to localize flagship investors as core drivers for this region. In this case, Chinese flagship investors who provide enormous innovative strength and high development prospects, and for whom the large-scale plots of land were explicitly withheld for. I argue then in this paper that these three temporal logics overlay and relate to each other, but the interplay of it is crucial to the localization process of Chinese gigafactories in Eastern Germany. And having a closer look at these temporalities helps to better understand the different roles, the different interests of actors and institutions that are involved in this process. Especially the role of state level governments becomes obvious here, because contrary to the assumption that these kinds of projects are driven by Chiense investors, the analysis basically shows that the state level government is the core driver behind and mainly steering the process. And that’s what I try to make visible through the temporal lens.
RAC: Yeah, it’s definitely a fascinating work that you’re trying to do here to really untease the weaving of these various levels of dynamics and logics. And I guess my take away from it is that there’s, you know, contrary to say, work by other people, Saskia Sassen, or even Nigel Thrift, there’s no kind of spatial fixation that you have a single point that you can identify here, rather it’s more temporal fixations that are kind of, tied in at multiple points in time in a never ending continuous and continual level of processes, complex change, that is, in some sense, steered, yes, as you’ve pointed out, but also an orchestration of multiple stakeholders or multiple actors. So it’s really, I guess, deep in the sense that it makes us have to, it compels us or inspires us to have to think about, you know, how is it that we’re setting up from the institutional, structural levels, the types of agency for maybe making some of these shifts or designing and shaping some of these shifts in the temporalities of the processes, and the logics, the way that we go and set about change, whether that’s through visioning or kind of agenda setting, anticipatory processes, and maybe even negotiating that, in particular, because we’re dealing with international and not just domestic interests as well. So, I think that’s very interesting that you’re bringing that to light. And I do hope that, you know, it seems like you are kind of at the crux of that work. This is probably still kind of a not quite a denouement, but there’s a continuation as okay, so what does this mean? What can we do in the end? Which will lead me, I guess, to the next question. And I think Manila can pick it up after that. Do you think that, you know, is there an extent as to who is actually very aware and certain with some of these developments? And how, what other types of philosophies or thinking can we draw on to be able to, to trigger new ways of trying to be more sensitive to this more expansive understanding of just what is going on? Some maybe in short, you know, are there other works and other types of thinkers? In previous conversation exchanges, you’ve mentioned some work such as, or concepts such as planetarity and deep time and drawing on that. Can you explain or, show to us? If you think or agree that there is an extent to which this type of expansive awareness is present, or if it’s not, if it should be and by whom or from whom?
HL: Yes, I mean, first of all, I do believe it’s really important to have a sort of, let’s say ‘temporal attuned thinking or practice’. Because what we do in the here and now relates to the past, and shapes also future situations and places. And what I’m currently asking myself a lot is what it really means to think in line with a so-called deep or cosmic timescale and, vice versa, what it really means to act in line with planetary politics, as you have mentioned it. And let me try to quickly outline why I do believe that this deep time thinking really matters. I will outline this issue with an example from the architecture and construction sector, where I also, I mean, partly come from, because I’m a trained architect. In recent years, more and more, we see the widespread call for the need to act within the planetary boundaries. Also in architecture, right? So, if you look here, for example, the so-called ‘Bauwende‘ or the transition of the construction sector has become increasingly important as a lever for a more socio-ecologically just and sustainable future, as the building sector still causes more than 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The Bauwende implies basically the reuse of existing buildings and materials, as well as to shift towards more circular construction, but also the increase of bio-based materials in construction. So, plenty of institutions of architecture firms and creative practices currently shift towards that approach to act more within the planetary boundaries. And when you currently observe the field, you can feel like a big hype or a huge spirit of optimism. So, the message is, you just need the right construction approach, then the future will be a better one for us and the planet. This is what always comes with this message of Bauwende. But what does it really mean to act within planetary boundaries? Because this message also implies the belief that we humans are the forerunners of possible solutions, like either nature-based or technological solutions, in order to deal or repair the environmental damages in times of the Anthropocene. And please don’t get me right. I’m also in line with the fact that we definitely need to change our actions towards more sustainable means. But I do think that we should reflect more about the temporary scales we are addressing with these practices and with our thinking. Because what is striking is that we always, again, place the Anthropocene at the center of our actions, a human-centered worldview, which is the Anthropocene in the end. That is at the heart of our current thinking, actions and politics. But the Anthropocene, if you compare it to cosmic time or to deep time, is a relatively short phase in the history of our planet of approximately only 500 years. And it refers mostly to the history of capitalism and exploitation of our planet. So, at this period, it essentially defines the timeframes and cycles in which we think today. Other timeframes that reach beyond the Anthropocene, for instance, reaching back thousands or even millions of years into the past, but also into the future, these timeframes are not a subject of our actions and political decisions. They remain abstract and mainly neglected. And this is precisely the goal of deep time thinking and deep time politics in order to be able to act in a truly sustainable way within planetary boundaries. We should actually think in planetary scales and timeframes. This is the message behind deep time thinking. And this is what attracts me to think through. This approach reaches back to pioneering scholars such as Gayatri Spivak and Dipesh Chakrabarty, and is being taken up, developed further in the German context at the moment by the political scientist Claus Leggewie, or also Frederic Hanusch and Erik Meyer. It is about the goal of decentralizing human-centered thinking and politics, thus taking the planet in its entirety, including the active forces of non-human life and timeframes, as the starting point of our political actions and practices. So, basically, readjusting our actions and politics in short time spans of, for instance, a few generations or decades are a good start, but are severely limited.
We have also to think about the implications of our doing in a longer term. And that’s why we crucially need to think and understand about this interrelation with more long-term planetary timeframes and adapt our actions accordingly. This is basically what this deep time thinking is all about.
Hannes Langguth
I could go further and could also deepen this, but maybe we leave it here for now.
RAC: Yeah, Hanusch. I think what I take from your response is that we need to be humbler about as humans and not be so self-centered and definitely limited in how we see things. But probably also because we are humans and so limited in our views, we’re unable to cross this hurdle of understanding or choosing to understand and acknowledge that there are time scales beyond what the durations and the timeframes that we set for ourselves. Yeah, Manila?
MdI: Yeah. And the concept of deep time shows us how really complex it is to think about time and to deal with time. So, time is part of our life, everyday life, but we don’t know how to grasp it. And the concept of deep time is really a jumping scale. Because it’s about, yeah, it’s about cosmic time. And it is interesting how cosmic time is something bigger than also geological time. So, it’s something bigger than us. And yes, it’s true, we should go back to planetary wellbeing and think that we are all part of bigger systems. And it’s also a question of culture, we are not used to think about it, we are not used to put the system, the heart in the center, we put ourselves in the center. So that’s why our perspective is so narrow. So, we really need to change our mindset.
HL: If I may quickly add to this, I mean, realizing that our practices, our interactions do impact also on the long term and do impact on the planet for thousands, millions of years, is the first step. But then what to do with that knowledge? How can we politicize this? How can we really shape institutions, political institutions, that set the boundaries for our future action, to really make sure that we do not destroy our planet further and that we really act within these planetary boundaries? For example, Frederic Hanusch has recently published the book ‘The Politics of Deep Time’, in which he tries to outline or sketch such ideas on how to set up new politics around deep time thinking. And he argues also for an internationally coordinated establishment of what he calls a deep time observatory, to be able to think through these interrelations and traces that we leave as humans on our planet and non-human life and to come up with a sort of what he calls multi-temporal governance. A governance which is not only shaping politics in the short term and midterm, but also in the long term, which takes these long-term timeframes, cosmic timeframes also into account in shaping policies. And I think it’s worth reading that book. And it’s an inspiring field coming up, which will definitely impact other fields like urban planning, and so on.
RAC: Yes, very interesting. So, news and insights about that. And it’d be a curious thought to imagine how such an observatory might link with other existing international organizations, such as the UN or even the Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel, whatnot. Yeah, I’d like to, I know that we’re closing in on towards the end of this interview. And perhaps I would like to add and follow up with one last question to tie that again, move away from the expanse and look at the practicalities grounded in the local actions. Close with one last question, in terms of how does this relate or push back to more localized approaches that we have, such as the 15-minute city or street experiments that have come out of post pandemic type of movement? Could you maybe speak to that in terms of the balance and the counterpoint of this expansive thinking and the more precise type of understanding of what that means for people at the everyday level and the street scale?
HL: Yeah, always a difficult question, making abstract thinking very graspable and illustrating it in practice. First of all, again, I believe that deep time thinking will help to decenter our today’s human-centered thinking and practice as we have elaborated on. And this crucially opens up the view for also non-human life on the planet, which, following this, becomes itself an important agent in the planning, design, construction of our futures. So, we become more sensitive towards our multiple planetary resources and the ways how we use them. And let me try, I don’t know if it’s a good example, but let me again come back to the architecture and the construction sector, which I want to use to illustrate this a little bit more. I think in the short term, what is happening at the moment in architecture and the construction sector in the timeframe of just a few years, let’s say, the time span of a construction phase, I think we are able to address really good methods already, like to practice resource efficient construction, for example, and have a really sensitive approach to new ways of construction. In the midterm timeframe or timescale, I would say the timeframe of a few generations, we do also good, because the whole sector is transforming in a way that it’s adjusting to the reuse of buildings, for example, or the reuse of materials, according to different uses and needs. So, we come towards more flexible floor plans, et cetera, and the reuse of buildings for other purposes. But in the long term, if we really speak about timeframes of a few, like let’s say, geological epochs, this timeframe is less considered in our practice so far, because our practice is always embedded in capitalist interests. So, architectural firms, companies, technology firms, they want to earn money, they want to have economic benefit. And if you really think about long-term geological epochs, and how our practice really matters on that, we radically need to concern and care about the conditions that allow, for example, the plantation of bio-based materials we are using today. So, that means,we need to ensure that the genetic diversity of such bio-materials, which has been developed already over millions of years, that these do not become vanished or extinguished through our life on earth. And instead, we need practices and politics that care about the long-term cycles that set the boundaries for the regeneration of our planet, for instance, of soils that are the basis for the plantation of these bio-materials, for example.
A better understanding of long-term geological effects and a progressive governance that addresses such long-term timeframes would make a big difference and would help to adjust our today’s actions and politics with regard to architecture, but also beyond.
Hannes Langguth
RAC: Thank you, Hannes. So, moving from beyond extractive to more expansive and caring and careful, I guess, ethos is what I take. Manila?
MdI: Yeah, very interesting. Thank you. Thank you, Hannes. It’s a lot to think about, really.
HL: Yes, and going through many timeframes, right? And timescales during this half an hour. So, it’s impressive to see what you can talk about in such a short time.
MdI: Yeah, when I was at the university and I studied architecture, one of the sentences that the professor used to say was, the scale matters, the scale matters, but they refer to space. But the scale matters also referring to time. And it matters a lot.
HL: Absolutely.
MdI: And it’s more and more important.
RAC: We have no better words to end on than that. So, thank you, Hannes, for reminding us to think about how the scale matters.
HL: Thank you, Robin and Manila for this invitation and the chance to talk with you. Thanks.
Hannes Langguth is an architect and urban researcher based in Berlin and Hamburg. Currently, he is a doctoral researcher in the DFG-Research training group “Urban Future-Making – Professional Agency Across Time and Scale” at HafenCity Universität Hamburg. Prior to this, he worked as a lecturer, researcher, and project coordinator at Technische Universität Berlin. Hannes has held several visiting research fellowships at international research institutions, such as the National University of Singapore (NUS), the University of Amsterdam, Tongji University Shanghai, and Columbia University New York. He is co-founder of the Berlin-based architecture office studioetcetera.