From Time to Time: Time Routes and Temporal Fragments in Representations of the Eastern Adriatic

This paper problematizes, from an ethnographic perspective, the temporal aspects of Eastern Adriatic travelogues published in the first half of the 20th century. By employing the concept of ‘time routes,’ the author analyzes diverse temporal fragments emerging along the itineraries of travel writers such as Maude Holbach, Alice Lee Moqué, Frances Kinsley Hutchinson, and Rebecca West. Their descriptions of local cultures and specific locations in the Eastern Adriatic open a debate about the shifting boundaries between the West and the East and between the past, present, and future. Furthermore, the predominantly spatial aspect of travelogues is supplemented by an analysis of diverse non-linear temporal modalities and phenomena, such as anticipation, expectations, idleness, boredom, timelessness, and waiting. The paper explores the spatiotemporally fluid nature of ‘time routes’ in representations of the Eastern Adriatic and how they discursively constitute heterogeneous temporal regimes and practices. The emergence of diverse temporal modalities is examined within the broader, at times overlapping, context of the Mediterranean and Southeastern European regions, raising the question of how Western ideas of linear progress are entangled with processes of temporal othering.