Disability, Productivism and Temporalities of Labour: Rethinking Work through Crip Time

Situated in a post-socialist context shaped by neoliberal restructuring and intensified temporal discipline, this article examines how crip time (Kafer 2013) challenges dominant temporal norms. These norms—conceptualised as chrononormativity (Freeman 2010)—underpin productivism that reduces people to resources for output (Mladenov 2017). Drawing on semi-structured interviews with disabled people in Czechia, the article argues that temporality can be reimagined in more relational, embodied and care-oriented ways (cf. Kafer 2013; Sharma 2014), enabling more inclusive and sustainable forms of work and life for diverse body-minds (Price 2011; 2021). The analysis develops this argument in three steps: it examines situations where the system temporarily accommodates individual needs without resulting in structural change, explores the emancipatory potential of crip time to reimagine futurity, and shows how the collective nature of crip time can challenge dominant ideals of productivism and labour.