Relational time and creolizing eschatology

Using Édouard Glissant's concept of creolization as a lens, this article explores how different senses of time respond to the volatile affective dynamics of polycrisis. It begins by specifying two interrelated problems: first, what it calls the affective double bind that intensifies desire for normalcy and familiarity when what is needed is creative and transformative thought and action; second, what it calls the pluriversal challenge of realizing planetary independence without imposing or privileging any single exclusive hegemonic meaning system. The paper then draws on Kyle Whyte's Anishinaabe informed “time as kinship” and Kyoto school philosopher Nishida Kitarō's “everyday eschatology” as examples for articulating “relational time,” contrasting this with a more familiar sense of “clock time” common to industrialized life. The article argues that cultivating relational time is helpful for navigating the affective dynamics of polycrisis and climate change. This is primarily discussed in terms of how it shifts engagement with conceptions and stories of origin and end, enabling a manner of maintaining their important affective work while challenging dominant habits of conceiving them through a logic of mutual exclusion that elevates one as the only real possibility. This amounts to a creolizing of eschatology.