Holding together industrial time: Coordinated temporalities on a dairy farm in China

This paper examines the temporal organization of industrial dairy production in China. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on a small-scale farm in Hebei Province, it showcases how a seemingly seamless 24/7 milk production cycle is sustained through the coordination of multiple, divergent temporalities. These include reproductive rhythms shaped by both bovine biology and market dynamics, the processual temporality of care and repair, and the agricultural temporality rooted in the 24 solar terms that structure traditional farming cycles in China. Engaging with theoretical work on temporal multiplicity and coordination, this paper highlights the costs of sustaining industrial production time, borne disproportionately by cows, human workers, ecologies, and small farms. By making visible the embodied and more-than-human labor required to sustain industrial time, this paper contributes to current discussions to rethink modernity through time. It offers an empirically grounded account of how divergent rhythms are held together through friction, improvisation, and care in industrial agriculture, calling for a temporal ethic grounded in responsiveness, care, and relational coordination.