Futuring

Abstract

Futuring is a novel theoretical and analytical method to analyse and influence the future sociologically. It studies techniques of futuring, the practices bringing together actors around one or more imagined futures and through which actors come to share particular orientations for action. Futuring views the future as a domain of a politics of the imagination, in which power relations have to be performed and enacted through social practice to be socially authoritative. Politically, futuring typically aims to enhance the capacity to aspire to meaningfully sustainable futures. Analytically, it hopes to further sociology’s literacy about the future by providing a new framework through which to understand how imagined futures become performative.