Sites of Causation: A Theoretical and Methodological Development of a Processual Perspective of Temporalities

This paper presents a new approach to how temporal encoding takes place and has an effect not just on the current present but also on past-presents. The paper offers a processual approach on how multiple temporalities are encoded into past-presents and create past-futures (Koselleck, 2002). This approach will be conceptually and methodologically developed through the example of how the Danish civil society constantly re-emerges as a site of causation through practices, actors, concepts and organizing forms. The contribution of the paper will be boththeoretical and methodological. Theoretically, the paper will develop the concept of sites of causation as an analytical concept for studying how stabilities are constituted through social and temporal trajectories and events not just in the current present, but also from past-presents. Methodologically, the paper will outline reiterated inquiries (Egholm & Kaspersen, 2020) as a way forward to study multiple temporalities with different rhythms.