Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society

Gert Verschraegen, Frédéric Vandermoere, Luc Braeckmans, Barbara Segaert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367890247
• eBook ISBN: 9781315440828
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

1 Introduction

Shaping the future through imaginaries of science, technology and society

Gert Verschraegen and Frédéric Vandermoere

In many cultures the past is made the locus of ‘a golden age’, but modern society has likewise made the future into a haven for unfulfilled ideals. At least since the Enlightenment, modernity has been seen as an emancipation from a stagnant and archaic past, which explains the value attributed to thoughts, visual depictions and language trying to imagine the future towards which we travel. As the grand works of ‘science fiction’ testify, modern societies are fascinated by stories of how science and technology create new possibilities, yet also new risks. Although most people regard science fiction as a highly entertaining, but also partly superfluous and untrustworthy medium, this genre also points to the deep entanglement of the present with our imagination of the future. Science fiction stories bear witness to the hopes and anxieties that are created by the accelerating scientific, technological and social changes and underline the collective belief that science and technology are fundamental when it comes to steering society in the direction of a desired future.

The conviction that societies can be improved through scientific research and technological imagination is part and parcel of modern society. ‘Progress’ first became a key leitmotif during the seventeenth century, when reformers declared that the best way forward was to encourage science and reason in order to plan and shape the future. Historians and sociologists have shown how this understanding of the future as an open space for events that can be influenced through deliberate action only emerged with the advent of modernity (Koselleck, 2004; Luhmann, 1976). Until the beginning of the seventeenth century, perceptions of the future were characterized mainly by theological expectations of the world’s immanent end. In such a religious world view, the idea of the future being a realm that could be shaped through human action and planning was impossible to conceive (Beckert, 2016, p. 28). With the emergence of the Enlightenment notion of progress, however, the horizon of the future became open and dynamic. Spurred by the rapid scientific, technological and economic changes of the time, the hope emerged that, although the future is uncertain, it can be helped into existence by relying on scientific and technological development, calculation and instruments of prognosis. This interest in envisioning and trying to shape the future has never really vanished from modern society.

In our age of rapid technological and scientific transformation, there is a renewed concern with future(s). Imagining and forecasting new futures has become an intrinsic part of our technological societies: how will we develop and plan smart cities and mobilities? How can we roll out renewable energies to tackle global warming? What new biological entities can we develop? Science and technology play a crucial role in our collective attempt to make sense of the future. Technological developments such as nanotechnology, robotics or solar energy 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 short- or long-term future. Our societies and organizations try to imagine what our social and technological futures will look like, yet also work upon this imagination by taking actions in organizations, drawing up plans and taking decisions about financing.

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 what various actors such as scientists, companies or states imagine the future to be like and how they act upon that imagination. Bringing together case studies from different regions around the globe, including the electrification of German car infrastructure or the genetic modification of crops in India, it shows how sociotechnological futures are imagined and how these imaginaries enable dynamics of social change and choice, opening horizons towards alternative futures.

In this introductory chapter, we aim to set the scene for the other contributions by giving a short overview of the current discussion on collective imaginaries and future-making. We first discuss the social and intellectual context within which the technoscientific imagination has become important for future-making and engage with some existing approaches towards the idea of future-making within the social sciences. We then present the different contributions to this book and lay out the different thematic connections between them.

The social bases of imaginaries of the future

While research in the social sciences traditionally explained individual and collective action by referring to the past and the force of social reproduction, the last decennia have seen an increased awareness of how expectations of the future shape present actions. In the fields of science and technology studies, as well as in the social sciences more broadly, social, economic and technical processes are seen as being driven by collective imaginations of the future (e.g. Borup et al., 2006; Brown, Rappert and Webster, 2000; Jasanoff and Kim, 2016). The decisions of individuals, groups and organizations are not solely determined by previous experiences and existing structures, but ‘are shaped in equal measure by perceptions of the future’ (Beckert, 2016, p. 35).

An array of scholars has emphasized the importance of imagination as a vital component of these future-oriented representations and projects. Whereas much of modern science and modern thinking has been preoccupied with constructing the world as a body of observable facts, which should be neatly distinguished from fantasy and imagination, contemporary literature has emphasized how our ideas about reality, and particularly about the future, are always bound up with the force of imagination. An ability to imagine the future is crucial in overcoming the uncertainty stemming from the openness of the future. Having a sense of how the future can look provides orientation in decision-making despite the unknowability of the future (Beckert, 2013, 2016).

It is important to emphasize that actors’ images of how the world will look at a future point in time are collective performances. There has been a growing literature on how the capacity to imagine futures is a crucial resource in political and social life, in which imagination is no longer seen as an individual capacity but as a collective phenomenon, organized through common practices. Influential thinkers such as Benedict Anderson (1983), Arjan Appadurai (1996) and Charles Taylor (2004) paid attention to the constitutive powers of collective imagination in the emergence of the nation state, the modern moral order or the contemporary landscape of globalization. In his now classic Imagined Communities (1983), Anderson famously described how new social practices like reading the newspaper enabled the emergence of a sense of shared destiny and community typical for the nation state. By reading the newspaper citizens could ‘imagine’ themselves to be in a community of other citizens reading the paper – an imaginary community, as most members never actually met one another. In a sense, Arjun Appadurai (1996) extended the historical work of Anderson by applying the notion of imaginaries to the contemporary, globalized world. Whereas print capitalism was crucial for the rise of the nation state, we have now entered an era in which digital media and mass migration are bound to have an equally profound impact on the way in which we make sense of the world we live in. In his own way, Charles Taylor expanded the analysis of collective imaginations to address the emergence of grand patterns of moral and political thought. Taylor defined social imaginaries as:

the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations which are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images which underlie these expectations.

(2004, p. 23)

Imaginaries in Taylor’s understanding are a set of collective assumptions and expectations that make possible and legitimize how collectivities order themselves. They are somewhat indefinite or inarticulate understandings enabling a ‘wider grasp of our predicament: how we stand to each other, how we got to where we are, how we relate to other groups’ (Taylor, 2004, p. 25). Imaginaries are hence not individual constructions, but pertain to the imaginations of large groups, and can thus hold large things together, such as nationhood or modern democratic space.

Imaginaries of scientific and technological futures

Recently, scholars from sociology and economics have highlighted the importance of social imaginaries in the structuring of social and economic life. In economics, authors such as George Shackle (1979) have emphasized the importance of collective imaginaries in the economy, where consumers, investors and corporations constantly have to take decisions about an uncertain future. In sociology, such scholars as Jens Beckert (2016), Niklas Luhmann (1995) and Ann Mische (2009) have paid attention to the role of expectations, anticipations and aspirations towards the future in shaping social life. Yet, as Sheila Jasanoff remarks, an ‘almost inexplicable omission from most accounts of social imaginaries is a detailed investigation of modernity’s two most salient forces: science and technology’ (2016, p. 8). Partly in reaction to this ‘systematic obscuration’ (Jasanoff, 2016, p. 8) of the role of science and technology, the last decennium has seen new strands of scholarship on future imaginaries emerge from science and technology studies.

Particularly influential has been the notion of ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’, which points to the importance of deeply institutionalized collective visions of what a good and attainable future looks like as they are ‘reflected in the design and fulfilment of nation-specific scientific and/or technological projects’ (Jasanoff and Kim 2009, p. 120). By paying attention to how future expectations and public forms of reasoning shape practices and policies of science and innovation, Jasanoff and Kim have shown how culturally specific imaginations are not purely mentalist inventions but ‘penetrate the very designs and practices of scientific research and technological development’ (2009, p. 124). In line with recent thinking in the field of science and technology studies, they emphasize how social and political imagination is co-produced with technoscientific practices and organization.

In the field of science, technology and innovation studies, imaginaries or anticipatory visions of the future have by now become an important field of research. An array of empirical studies has shown how collective visions and expectations about future scientific or technological developments shape and influence whether and how these developments come about. Imaginaries of the future are in part ‘make-believe games’ (Beckert, 2016; Walton, 1990) that constitute narratives about how new technologies and innovations will change our lives and societies. When these stories are ‘taken up in statements, brief stories or scenarios’ (Van Lente and Rip, 1998, p. 205), they have the power to ‘influence technological design, channel public expenditures, and justify the inclusion or exclusion of citizens with respect to the benefits of technological progress’ (Jasanoff and Kim, 2009, p. 121). Imaginaries of the future can thus be seen as ‘productive’ or ‘performative’, in the sense that they shape the conditions of possibility for the further development of science and technology. Future science and technology are often presented as ‘the “place” where solutions are realized, presences manifested, and wrongs righted’ (Michael, 2000, p. 22). Promissory stories about future technologies and innovations can constitute a major resource for actors to draw on when trying to enrol other actors into networks of scientific or technological innovation (Fujimura, 2003; Van Lente and Rip, 1998). Particularly in the early stages of a technological or scientific development, promissory images of the future are constitutive in ‘attracting the interest of necessary allies (various actors in innovation networks, investors, regulatory actors, users, etc.) and in defining roles and in building mutually binding obligations and agendas’ (Borup et al., 2006). Voicing high expectations and selling promises are common practices in new and emerging science and technologies (NEST) such as nanotechnologies, as they can mobilize (social, material and financial) resources for a protected space in which actors can collaborate to bring about what a story has anticipated (Van Lente, 1993). ‘Whether imaginary and outcome actually correspond,’ Jens Beckert rightly notes, ‘must be answered empirically. By the same token, expectations can collapse if promissory stories cease to be convincing’ (Beckert, 2016, p. 177).

Uncertainty and the politics of future-making

Making promissory stories about future scientific and technological developments credible and obtaining enduring support to channel resources into risky projects is a huge challenge. Scientific and technological imaginaries need to become materialized and converted into durable things and identities. Obviously, this process is not without friction or resistance. Competing imaginations, some more powerful than others, mostly try to establish themselves on the same terrain. Beckert (2016, p. 184) correctly notes that ‘if resources for innovation are allocated based on promissory stories whose future success is uncertain, then actors will inevitably contest not just the distribution of these resources, but also the imaginaries surrounding innovations’. A strand of literature hence emphasizes how sociotechnical imaginaries are subject to political struggle and are reflecting inequalities of power and authority (e.g. Brown, Rappert and Webster, 2000; Moreira and Palladino, 2005; Wilkie and Michael, 2009). Different ‘disciplines, capacities and actors compete for the right to represent near and far term developments’ (Brown, Rappert and Webster, 2000, p. 5), aiming to influence particular future political and economic paths while bracketing off others.

Another strand of literature has focused rather on how actors, within the confines of existing social and institutional structures, come to terms in a practical way with the openness and inherent uncertainty of the future (e.g. Beckert, 2013, 2016; Gross, 2010). Social actors have to almost continuously make decisions with regard to investments, technological developments and future actions without knowledge about what exactly will happen in the future. How do actors generate a sense of what the future will look like and become convinced that the risks that are connected to their decisions are worth taking? A dominant approach to this question is rooted in economics and assumes that decisions involving the future must be based on a rational account of expected future payoffs and costs. Another approach, which is more associated with so-called ‘future studies’, tries to ‘manage’ the uncertainty of the future through techniques such as horizon-scanning, scenario building and future visioning. Due to the fact that there is a public demand for ‘scientifically based’ predictions, particularly with regard to new and growing uncertainties involved, a ‘forecasting industry’ came into being from the 1960s and 1970s onwards. Scenario techniques, for instance, have become increasingly popular in economic planning, political consulting or technological innovation policies. Although these forecasting techniques and calculation devices shape the actual expectations of actors as well as their sense of the means by which the future can best be approached, they have important limits. Actors may try to reduce the uncertainty entailed in the future by forecasting or calculating ‘most likely’ scenarios, but they will never be able to eliminate the ‘fundamental uncertainty’ of other actors’ choices, unpredictable innovations and unforeseeable side effects. Imaginaries of the future are hence crucial in overcoming the uncertainty stemming from the inherent openness of the future, and ‘provide orientation in decision-making despite the uncertainty inherent in the situation’ (Beckert, 2013, p. 222).

Overview of the book

The chapters in this book show how the future is imagined, brought into being and performed in various ways by a diversity of actors, practices and discourses. The contributions focus primarily on how futures are imagined within science and technology and on how these imaginaries enable dynamics of social change and choice. How do specific scientific and technological projects imagine and negotiate new potentialities (or future damage)? How do various social actors contest and struggle over desirable futures, based on competing analyses of the current and ideal state of affairs? What predictive technologies are being used ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Shaping the future through imaginaries of science, technology and society
• Part I Shaping human nature
• Part II Shaping techno-natures
• Part III Shaping societies
• Index