Imagining Collective Futures

Author : Constance de Saint-Laurent,Sandra Obradović,Kevin R. Carriere
Publisher : Springer
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2018-05-08
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9783319760513

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Imagining Collective Futures by Constance de Saint-Laurent,Sandra Obradović,Kevin R. Carriere Pdf

It is a commonly held assumption among cultural, social, and political psychologists that imagining the future of societies we live in has the potential to change how we think and act in the world. However little research has been devoted to whether this effect exists in collective imaginations, of social groups, communities and nations, for instance. This book explores the part that imagination and creativity play in the construction of collective futures, and the diversity of outlets in which these are presented, from fiction and cultural symbols to science and technology. The authors discuss this effect in social phenomena such as in intergroup conflict and social change, and focus on several cases studies to illustrate how the imagination of collective futures can guide social and political action. This book brings together theoretical and empirical contributions from cultural, social, and political psychology to offer insight into our constant (re)imagination of the societies in which we live.

Author : Gert Verschraegen,Frédéric Vandermoere,Luc Braeckmans,Barbara Segaert
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 398 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2017-04-07
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781315440828

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Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society by Gert Verschraegen,Frédéric Vandermoere,Luc Braeckmans,Barbara Segaert Pdf

Imagining, forecasting and predicting the future is an inextricable and increasingly important part of the present. States, organizations and individuals almost continuously have to make decisions about future actions, financial investments or technological innovation, without much knowledge of what will exactly happen in the future. Science and technology play a crucial role in this collective attempt to make sense of the future. Technological developments such as nanotechnology, robotics or solar energy largely shape how we dream and think about the future, while economic forecasts, gene tests or climate change projections help us to make images of what may possibly occur in the future. This book provides one of the first interdisciplinary assessments of how scientific and technological imaginations matter in the formation of human, ecological and societal futures. Rooted in different disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, and science and technology studies, it explores how various actors such as scientists, companies or states imagine the future to be and act upon that imagination. Bringing together case studies from different regions around the globe, including the electrification of German car infrastructure, or genetically modified crops in India, Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society shows how science and technology create novel forms of imagination, thereby opening horizons toward alternative futures. By developing central aspects of the current debate on how scientific imagination and future-making interact, this timely volume provides a fresh look at the complex interrelationships between science, technology and society. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students interested in Science and Technology Studies, History and Philosophy of Science, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Political Sciences, Future Studies and Literary Sciences.

Author : Professor Peter Murphy
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2013-01-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781409495499

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The Collective Imagination by Professor Peter Murphy Pdf

The Collective Imagination explores the social foundations of the human imagination. In a lucid and wide-ranging discussion, Peter Murphy looks at the collective expression of the imagination in our economies, universities, cities, and political systems, providing a tour-de-force account of the power of the imagination to unite opposites and find similarities among things that we ordinarily think of as different. It is not only individuals who possess the power to imagine; societies do as well. A compelling journey through various peak moments of creation, this book examines the cities and nations, institutions and individuals who ply the paraphernalia of paradoxes and dialogues, wry dramaturgy and witty expression that set the act of creation in motion. Whilst exploring the manner in which, through the media of pattern, figure, and shape, and the miracles of metaphor, things come into being, Murphy recognises that creative periods never last: creative forms invariably tire; inventive centres inevitably fade. The Collective Imagination explores the contemporary dilemmas and historic pathos caused by this-as cities and societies, periods and generations slip behind in the race for economic and social discovery. Left bewildered and bothered, and struggling to catch up, they substitute empty bombast, faded glory, chronic dullness or stolid glumness for initiative, irony, and inventiveness. A comprehensive audit of the creativity claims of the post-modern age - that finds them badly wanting and looks to the future - The Collective Imagination will appeal to sociologists and philosophers concerned with cultural theory, cultural and media studies and aesthetics.

Author : Adom Getachew
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2023-01-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781946511744

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Imagining Global Futures by Adom Getachew Pdf

A collection of post-colonial visions for a more just world. What does a just world look like? This volume begins with a planet beset by accumulating crises—environmental, social, and political—and imagines how we can move beyond them. Drawing on the legacy of post-colonial struggles for liberation, Imagining Global Futures explores a range of radical visions for a world after neoliberalism and empire. Centered on movements in the Global South, the collection challenges dominant patterns of social and political life and sketches more just and sustainable futures we might build in their place. What can we learn from alternative conceptions of the good life? How can we build a world where people are both freer and more equal? An urgent resource for collective imagination, Imagining Global Futures counterposes thick visions of a better world to our dystopian present.

Author : Liam Young,Saskia Sassen,Kim Stanley Robinson,Ewan McEoin,Benjamin Bratton,Ashley Dawson,Holly Gene Buck,Ryan Griffen,Xia Jia,Stanley Chen,Giorgos Kallis,Nalo Hopkinson,Amaia Sanchez-Velasco,Andrew Toland
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2020-12-17
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 064868587X

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Planet City by Liam Young,Saskia Sassen,Kim Stanley Robinson,Ewan McEoin,Benjamin Bratton,Ashley Dawson,Holly Gene Buck,Ryan Griffen,Xia Jia,Stanley Chen,Giorgos Kallis,Nalo Hopkinson,Amaia Sanchez-Velasco,Andrew Toland Pdf

Planet City is a speculation of what might happen if the world collapsed into a new home for 10 billion people, allowing the rest of the world to return to a global wilderness. It is both an extraordinary image of tomorrow and an urgent examination of the environmental questions that face us today.

Author : Shelley Streeby
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : History
ISBN : 9780520294448

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Imagining the Future of Climate Change by Shelley Streeby Pdf

#NoDAPL : native American and indigenous science, fiction, and futurisms -- Climate refugees in the greenhouse world : archiving global warming with Octavia E. Butler -- Climate change as a world problem : shaping change in the wake of disaster

Author : Doctor Alex Khasnabish,Max Haiven
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2014-06-12
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781780329031

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The Radical Imagination by Doctor Alex Khasnabish,Max Haiven Pdf

The idea of the imagination is as evocative as it is elusive. Not only does the imagination allow us to project ourselves beyond our own immediate space and time, it also allows us to envision the future, as individuals and as collectives. The radical imagination, then, is that spark of difference, desire and discontent that can be fanned into the flames of social change. Yet what precisely is the imagination and what might make it 'radical'? How can it be fostered and cultivated? How can it be studied and what are the possibilities and risks of doing so? This book seeks to answer these questions at a crucial time. As we enter into a new cycle of struggles marked by a worldwide crisis of social reproduction, scholar-activists Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish explore the processes and possibilities for cultivating the radical imagination in dark times. A lively and crucial intervention in radical politics, social research and social change, and the collective visions and cultures that inspire them.

Author : Rob Hopkins
Publisher : Chelsea Green Publishing
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2019-10-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781603589062

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From What Is to What If by Rob Hopkins Pdf

“Big ideas that just might save the world”—The Guardian The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it. In these times of deep division and deeper despair, if there is a consensus about anything in the world, it is that the future is going to be awful. There is an epidemic of loneliness, an epidemic of anxiety, a mental health crisis of vast proportions, especially among young people. There’s a rise in extremist movements and governments. Catastrophic climate change. Biodiversity loss. Food insecurity. The fracturing of ecosystems and communities beyond, it seems, repair. The future—to say nothing of the present—looks grim. But as Transition movement cofounder Rob Hopkins tells us, there is plenty of evidence that things can change, and cultures can change, rapidly, dramatically, and unexpectedly—for the better. He has seen it happen around the world and in his own town of Totnes, England, where the community is becoming its own housing developer, energy company, enterprise incubator, and local food network—with cascading benefits to the community that extend far beyond the projects themselves. We do have the capability to effect dramatic change, Hopkins argues, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The ability, that is, to ask What if? And if there was ever a time when we needed that ability, it is now. Imagination is central to empathy, to creating better lives, to envisioning and then enacting a positive future. Yet imagination is also demonstrably in decline at precisely the moment when we need it most. In this passionate exploration, Hopkins asks why imagination is in decline, and what we must do to revive and reclaim it. Once we do, there is no end to what we might accomplish. From What Is to What If is a call to action to reclaim and unleash our collective imagination, told through the stories of individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now, as we speak, and witnessing often rapid and dramatic change for the better.

Author : Henry Jenkins,Gabriel Peters-Lazaro,Sangita Shresthova
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2020-02-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781479891252

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Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination by Henry Jenkins,Gabriel Peters-Lazaro,Sangita Shresthova Pdf

How popular culture is engaged by activists to effect emancipatory political change One cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination represents a call for greater clarity about what we’re fighting for—not just what we’re fighting against. Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes “civic imagination” as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culture—from Beyoncé to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VR—for the vernacular through which they can express their discontent with current conditions. A young activist uses YouTube to speak back against J. K. Rowling in the voice of Cho Chang in order to challenge the superficial representation of Asian Americans in children’s literature. Murals in Los Angeles are employed to construct a mythic imagination of Chicano identity. Twitter users have turned to #BlackGirlMagic to highlight the black radical imagination and construct new visions of female empowerment. In each instance, activists demonstrate what happens when the creative energies of fans are infused with deep political commitment, mobilizing new visions of what a better democracy might look like.

Author : Anon Collective
Publisher : punctum books
Page : 490 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2021-03-04
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781953035318

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Book of Anonymity by Anon Collective Pdf

Author : Gabriel Peters-Lazaro,Sangita Shresthova
Publisher : Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Civics
ISBN : 1433172704

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Practicing Futures by Gabriel Peters-Lazaro,Sangita Shresthova Pdf

Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Action Handbook is a practical guide for community leaders, educators, creative professionals and change-makers who want to sharpen their visions for the future and understandings of the how the past affects them.

Author : Bruce Braun
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2019-01-03
Category : Climatic changes
ISBN : 1138393002

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Futures by Bruce Braun Pdf

Futures: Imagining Socioecological Transformation brings together leading scholars to explore how we might know, enact, and struggle for, the conjoined social and ecological transformations we need to achieve just and sustainable futures. The question of transformation, and how it might be achieved, is explored across a variety of topics and geographical sites, and through heterodox analytical and theoretical approaches, in a collective effort to move beyond a form of critique that hands down judgements, to one that brings new ideas and new possibilities to life. Chapters are lively and original engagements with concrete situations that sparkle with creativity. Together, they add up to an impressive study of how to live, and what to struggle for, in the complex socioecological landscapes of the Anthropocene. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Author : International Commission on the Futures of Education
Publisher : UNESCO Publishing
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2021-11-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9789231004780

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Reimagining our futures together by International Commission on the Futures of Education Pdf

The interwoven futures of humanity and our planet are under threat. Urgent action, taken together, is needed to change course and reimagine our futures.

Author : Sheila Jasanoff,Sang-hyun Kim
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2015-09-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226276663

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Dreamscapes of Modernity by Sheila Jasanoff,Sang-hyun Kim Pdf

Dreamscapes of Modernity offers the first book-length treatment of sociotechnical imaginaries, a concept originated by Sheila Jasanoff and developed in close collaboration with Sang-Hyun Kim to describe how visions of scientific and technological progress carry with them implicit ideas about public purposes, collective futures, and the common good. The book presents a mix of case studies—including nuclear power in Austria, Chinese rice biotechnology, Korean stem cell research, the Indonesian Internet, US bioethics, global health, and more—to illustrate how the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries can lead to more sophisticated understandings of the national and transnational politics of science and technology. A theoretical introduction sets the stage for the contributors’ wide-ranging analyses, and a conclusion gathers and synthesizes their collective findings. The book marks a major theoretical advance for a concept that has been rapidly taken up across the social sciences and promises to become central to scholarship in science and technology studies.

Author : Patrick Reinsborough,Doyle Canning
Publisher : PM Press
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2017-10-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781629633954

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Re:imagining Change by Patrick Reinsborough,Doyle Canning Pdf

Re:Imagining Change provides resources, theory, hands-on tools, and illuminating case studies for the next generation of innovative change-makers. This unique book explores how culture, media, memes, and narrative intertwine with social change strategies, and offers practical methods to amplify progressive causes in the popular culture. Re:Imagining Change is an inspirational inside look at the trailblazing methodology developed by the Center for Story-based Strategy over fifteen years of their movement building partnerships. This practitioner’s guide is an impassioned call to innovate our strategies for confronting the escalating social and ecological crises of the twenty-first century. This new, expanded second edition includes updated examples from the frontlines of social movements and provides the reader with easy-to-use tools to change the stories they care about most.