Equipment and Future-Coordination

• In Event: 289 - Theory Section Invited Session. Future-Making in Sociological Theory

Abstract

Various kinds of non-human "equipment" tend to channel people's everyday, usually unspoken, ways of anticipating the future in everyday action and interaction. People intentionally set up some future-anticipating equipment, although the effects of material affordances often emerge as a surprise to all involved. In some ways, nearly any "thing" can bear meaning for future-coordination (railroad lines laid; applications forms for jobs, or housing; financial investment formats; buildings; fire escapes). Relying on our previous work, we explore how such equipment shape the coordination of three modalities of future-making—protentions, narratives and temporal landscapes. Doing so will show how to materialize the way in which future-coordination takes place.

Authors

• Nina Eliasoph, University of Southern California

• Iddo Tavory, New School for Social Research