Time – Health – Culture

Time is an omnipresent fact of life which seems to be natural and universal, but which also varies cross-culturally.

The book demonstrates the usefulness of knowledge on cultural time conceptions for the understanding of local cultures in general (what is important within anthropology) and for health-related issues in particular (what reveals the interdisciplinary relevance of time studies). By comparing the important health economical concept of 'time preference' with local notions and practices pertaining to time in rural Burkina Faso, the transferability of a Western temporal concept to a non-Western - here Burkinabè - context is tested and evaluated. The book hence shows the significance of socio-cultural time studies for epistemological as well as applied and interdisciplinary scientific interests.