Operations In Critical Waiting Processes

Analytical Notes from a Discontinuous Materialist Perspective

Abstract

This paper offers an alternative approach to the essential matter of the factors involved in the process of waiting, especially in critical contexts such as civil emergencies. Some categories for the analysis of waiting are developed here, taking an alternative theoretical perspective, where waiting processes are conceived of as operational and institutionalised in nature, rather than mere temporal phenomena. Importantly, this paper contributes to research in the field of anthropology studying processes of waiting, as it presents a unique perspective of analysis. This perspective shifts the focus of these processes from temporalities to institutions and highlights the essential importance of operations in their analysis. In order to exemplify the proposed perspective, empirical waiting processes in crisis will be analysed. These examples of critical waiting have been selected with consideration to their historical, political or social  impact. The demand for operational behaviour among the people waiting has also been considered in these examples. These processes will be analysed using categories established from an institutional and operational approach based on the materialistic philosophical approach of the Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno Martinez, sometimes called Discontinuous Materialism.