Breaking up time: negotiating the borders between present, past and future

This article sketches some of the recent evolutions in the study historical time. It proposes three issues that up to now have not received a lot of attention, but in our view deserve to be put on the research agenda. Three questions seem especially pertinent and urgent. First there is the question of how cultures in general and historians in particular distinguish ‘past’ from ‘present’ and ‘future’. We have a closer look at three historians as examples. Secondly, there is the question concerning the 'performative' character of temporal distinctions. Usually ‘the past’ is somehow supposed to ‘break off’ from ‘the present’ by itself, by its growing temporal ‘weight’ or distance – also in most philosophy of history. The article analyzes the distinguishing of the three temporal modes as a form of social action and proposes to regard the drawing of lines between the present and the past as a form of disciplinary ‘border patrol’ (Joan Scott). The third question concerns the political nature of the borders that separate these temporal dimensions. Following among others François Hartog we argue that time is not the entirely neutral medium that it is often believed to be, but that it is up to a certain degree, inherently ethical and political