Techniques of Futuring: How Imagined Futures Become Socially Performative

Abstract

Today’s politics is dominated by bleak images of the future. While there is a widespread recognition that images of the future play a political role in the present, there is little knowledge on how do such imagined futures become socially performative. Drawing on constructivist sociological theory, this paper proposes a dramaturgical analysis using the concepts of ‘techniques of futuring’ and ‘dramaturgical regime’. The paper has three aims: to (1) identify the leading social-theoretical work on the future; (2) conceptualize the relationship of the imagination of the future with social practices and the performance of reality; (3) provide a theoretical framework explaining how images of the future become performative.