In this special issue on multidisciplinary explorations of childhood and temporality, we add to a growing body of literature that critiques linear time’s injurious effects on children. As an illusion that produces the stable, traceable child subject, we argue that adherence to a temporal essence reduces capacities for childhood and childhood studies. The articles in this special issue illuminate cripped, queered, affective, lingering, and diffracted temporalities, and highlight the racialized, colonized, neoliberal, and developmental violence of “progressive” time. When we challenge linear time’s authorizing power, what possibilities for theorizing childhood emerge? We suggest, along with our contributors, that the exciting temporal landscape in which childhood studies finds itself opens avenues not just for fresh inquiries but also for different political modalities.
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