What do we want from a sociology of the future?: Exploring the epistemological needs of an emerging field

IF 3 3区管理学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Futures Pub Date : 2024-02-23 DOI:10.1016/j.futures.2024.103349

Jordan McKenzie

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Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the epistemological conditions of a sociology of the future. This article offers three conditions for a grounded sociology of the future: 1) It must be more than a study of utopia and dystopia, 2) It must be able to think of the future as something rather than nothing, 3) It requires an accessible understanding of time as it pertains to emotion, imagination and reason. There are already examples of successful future oriented sociology that satisfy these conditions, but the markers of a sociology of the future are often implicit rather than explicit. Together, these conditions are necessary to transcend the limitations of speculative futurism, while offering an alternative pathway to stagnation or reactionary thinking. Where Mark Fisher has described the slow cancellation of the future (2014), and Barbara Adam and Chris Groves have described a commodification and colonisation of the future (2007: 13), this article will investigate the topic of alienation as a means to ground the future in the everyday. This article is admittedly speculative and aims to bring generalist sociological readers into a futures discourse that can be applied in a vast range of research contexts.

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未来社会学需要什么？探索新兴领域的认识论需求

本文旨在探讨未来社会学的认识论条件。本文为脚踏实地的未来社会学提供了三个条件：1）它必须不仅仅是对乌托邦和乌托邦的研究；2）它必须能够将未来视为有而非无；3）它需要对时间有一个通俗易懂的理解，因为它涉及情感、想象力和理性。已经有成功的面向未来的社会学满足了这些条件，但未来社会学的标志往往是隐性的而非显性的。这些条件加在一起，是超越投机性未来主义局限的必要条件，同时也为停滞或反动思维提供了另一条途径。马克-费舍尔（Mark Fisher）描述了未来的缓慢取消（2014），芭芭拉-亚当（Barbara Adam）和克里斯-格罗夫斯（Chris Groves）描述了未来的商品化和殖民化（2007: 13），本文将探讨异化这一话题，以此将未来植根于日常之中。诚然，本文是一篇推测性文章，旨在将普通社会学读者带入可应用于各种研究语境的未来论述中。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Futures Multiple-

CiteScore

6.00

自引率

10.00%

发文量

124

期刊介绍： Futures is an international, refereed, multidisciplinary journal concerned with medium and long-term futures of cultures and societies, science and technology, economics and politics, environment and the planet and individuals and humanity. Covering methods and practices of futures studies, the journal seeks to examine possible and alternative futures of all human endeavours. Futures seeks to promote divergent and pluralistic visions, ideas and opinions about the future. The editors do not necessarily agree with the views expressed in the pages of Futures