Contemporary society is characterized by multiple insecurities which are often experienced as crises. This is closely linked to questions about the future because crises make the future appear less tangible and more uncertain for many people. Nevertheless, imaginations of (different) futures may serve as blueprints for action in times of crises. As the social sciences have been dealing with mutually influencing crisis topics (see Matern 2018, Kutter 2020, Krasni 2017), the debate surrounding the term itself and the fuzziness of its meaning thus increasingly involves a variety of future-related questions and draws attention towards the ways in which future is experienced and shaped in contemporary society. A classical sociological conceptualisation of such future plans has been provided by looking at approaches to utopia (f.e. Zuk 2020), which provides useful insights into the relevance of the temporal dimension of future visions and future-oriented practice (Dinerstein 2015, Wright 2010, Daniel 2022). Current academic debates focus on future orientations and temporalities (Bryant/Knight 2019), the future of (racial) capitalism (Beckert 2016; Milanović 2021), challenges to human and non-human survival (Haraway 2016; Tsing 2015), or on concepts like prefigurative politics as a tool for analysing how a particular end is being›shaped‹in different realms of society (Yates 2021; Maekelbergh 2016).
The DFG-funded research impulse "Shaping Future Society" (SaFe) investigates the mutual constitution of future-oriented practices and community processes and invites contributions for a conference, which aims to explore and evaluate alternative visions and practices that mobilize societal change, critically assess the impact of community-driven initiatives in fostering social transformation, and advance methodological debates that enrich transformative research. We assume that community, as a basic element of social order, acts as a nucleus of social change in everyday life. Therefore, we are particularly interested in how communities are produced and reproduced through future-oriented practices and how they enable and act towards productively responding to envisaged future challenges.
The conference is organized in seven thematic fields, six of which correspond directly to one of the research projects within the SaFe initiative (see below). We welcome submissions from scholars across disciplines that address the conference themes through one of the seven thematic fields. Contributions may include case studies, theoretical discussions, methodological contributions, or interdisciplinary approaches that open new avenues for understanding and enacting future in community.
We invite participants to submit their abstract of max. 300 words until September 1, 2025 to safe(at)hs-fulda.de.
Please include a short biography, your current institutional affiliation, and make sure to highlight to which of the thematic fields you would like to contribute.