`Things That Stay'

Abstract

Taking up Grosz's proposal for the `complexities of time and becoming' to be considered seriously, this article explores the status of time and the future within feminist theory through empirical research in which teenage girls describe things `staying'. Focusing on these `things that stay' and drawing on Bergson's concepts of duration and the virtual, the article argues that time is dynamic and heterogeneous; things endure through divergence and transformation. It argues that if the relations of temporality are understood as both continuous and discontinuous, enduring and changing, feminist theory orients to the future in `novel' ways.