Extraction Economies: Currencies of Time and Truth

I arrived punctually, trying to blend in with the “on the dot” approach despite my Dutch instinct to be at least ten minutes early. My cultural programming was temporarily suppressed in favour of local norms. Punctuality is that unspoken contract between a professional and a client. I wouldn’t be early; they wouldn’t make me wait.

At 11:00 sharp, I enter as the last patient exits. The doctor greets me with practised efficiency before retreating to her clinical domain.

A promising sign.

Then the young receptionist, whose facial expression suggests the evolutionary development of critical thinking has yet to be completed, instructs me to sit down. I refuse.

The waiting area is anthropologically fascinating (all bling on purple) but personally infuriating: a liminal space designed for docile compliance.

Ten minutes pass. No movement. No acknowledgement.

Time—my time—evaporates into the antiseptic air.

While waiting, I grab my phone to read about Erdogan and his economic whisperer, Simsek, the market darling.

My mind drifts to Indrawati and Nabiullina—central bank governors navigating treacherous financial waters while I sit in this multipolar microcosm of dental power dynamics.

The irony doesn’t escape me: analyzing global economic policymakers while subjected to the petty tyranny of a dental office where Botox advertisements and carefully straightened teeth signal the ruling aesthetic paradigm. The stupidity of it all has a certain symmetry.

I inquire about the delay. “Just a minute,” comes the reply—that temporal placeholder designed to pacify without commitment.

Another ten minutes. My blood pressure transforms into a geopolitical conflict—territories of patience invaded by armies of frustration. I am paying for this time they are hijacking.

The power dynamic is clear: they control access to a necessary service; I am expected to graciously accept whatever timeline they impose.

When I ask again, there’s a flurry of movement—staff suddenly animated like participants in a ritual dance whose meaning is apparent only to initiates.

Five minutes of performative rustling later, the assistant beckons me in with a casual wave, as if I’ve only just arrived.

The dentist murmurs something about an “emergency”—that universal password that instantly neutralizes any complaint, to which I respond that with her abundant staff, informing me would have been a courtesy well within operational capabilities.

At payment time, when the power balance temporarily shifts, she assures me that “next time”, there will be no waiting. She’ll usher out the preceding patient without lengthy, uneloquent conversation. She promises. I know this is a fabrication; I witnessed her escorting her previous client to reception when I arrived.

The “emergency” materialized conveniently in the narrative after the fact.

She doesn’t know I’m an observer by nature and devotion. I notice how she keeps her eyes slightly averted during this assurance. I catalogue the micro-expressions that signal insincerity. I am neither unobservant nor unintelligent.

So when the receptionist attempts to extract a 50% deposit for my next visit (that fascinating financial manoeuvre to secure future compliance), I refuse.

The anthropologist takes field notes. The patient takes back control.

This small act of refusal matters in the grand theatre of everyday power dynamics.

As I leave the clinic, I can’t help but draw parallels between the micro-governance of a dental practice and the macro-politics I was reading about.

Erdogan and Simsek manipulate economic levers, and Indrawati and Nabiullina navigate financial currents. These are all exercises in power, control, and the management of others’ expectations, all requiring close observation to identify truth beneath carefully constructed narratives.

The anthropologist never stops observing. Even when reclined in a dental chair, even when the observed think we’re just another patient growing increasingly impatient.

They don’t realize we’re taking notes the entire time.

Or quoting my grandmother when opening the fridge without permission:” What kind of brand new fool do you think I am?”

May Harmony find you,

Irena Phaedra