Rethinking embodied time: Three hypotheses on the embodiment of disembodied time

In this era of social acceleration, many social theorists have examined the utilisation and alienation of the body by focusing on the relationship between institutional and lived time, while also recognising the role of embodied time in understanding the logic of modern time. However, they remain vague about the complexity of the embodiment of time and its theoretical premises, particularly regarding assumptions about the body, subjectivity, temporality, and disembodied time at play in embodiment. The embodiment of time should not be simply viewed as a process in which external time replaces or corrects internal time, but rather as a complex and multifaceted process. Against this background, we reconstructed three distinct hypotheses from existing literature. The first is constructive embodiment, which addresses incompletely disembodied time, the pre-established harmony of social rhythm, and the historical constitution of time perception, habituation, and practice. The second is forced embodiment, which highlights disembodied time represented by abstraction and standardisation, as well as forms of embodiment grounded in bodily objectification. The third is active embodiment, which can appear as reflexive exploitation aligned with self-objectification, or as the de-objectification and re-encoding of the body and time. Corresponding to functionalbodies, objective bodies, and experiential or perceived bodies respectively, these hypotheses lay the groundwork for rethinking the intellectual continuity of the sociology of time.