53. Futures imagining and the cultivation of possibility
Horst Rachel, The University of British Columbia; Esteban Morales, The University of British Columbia
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês, Spanish/Español/Espanhol
While human beings cannot predict the future, we have a performative impact upon how the future(s) unfolds and can cultivate future possibilities through engaging in generative imagining in the present moment. As peace scholar Elise Boulding (1988) reminds us, the story of history can be read as a succession of imaginative acts that catalyze human effort in the direction of the imagined. Contemporary technologies, for example, were not predetermined by an unswerving force of progress, but rather are contingent upon many factors including the science fictional dreams and speculative stories that fed their designers’ sense of what was possible. Although the future does not exist, it is never-the-less a deeply contested and profitable imaginative terrain, where power and money continue to jostle for control of the narrative and to trademark future possibility. It is therefore necessary to safeguard the future(s) as a democratic and decolonized space for radical and non-normative imagining towards the proliferation of alternatives to the status quo. If we are to find sustainable and just solutions to our most pressing social, ecological, and cultural problems, we must engage the imaginations of contemporary researchers and scholars who are committed to dislodging dominant narratives of futurity, towards more beneficial potentialities for all – both human and other than human. This panel seeks papers in both Spanish and English that engage with the futures imaginary, speculative design, and/or science fictional imagining in the sciences and technologies towards enacting radical, democratized, and/or posthuman future(s) possibilities.
