Exploiting and Embracing Uncertainty: UNESCO's Futures of Education Work

• In Event: Highlighted Session: International Organizations and their Conceptions of Educational Future

Proposal

Invocations of uncertainty pervade education futures work. International organizations doing policy work in this area attempt to govern the future in one part through their knowledge calculations. What is considered known and unknown about the future is fully caught up in the work of enabling some possibilities while disabling others. In some contexts today “uncertainty” is wielded like a battle axe to advance narrow political and economic interests. Climate change denials are perhaps the most notorious contemporary instance of avowed future uncertainties functioning as a political technology of ignorance-making (Proctor 2008, Angulo 2016). Yet, at the same time, others (e.g., Appadurai, 2022; Miller, 2022) call for the wholehearted embrace of “uncertainty” as a strategy of progressive politics and global transformation. This paper explores conflicting constructions of indeterminacy in UNESCO's diverse and divergent education futures work and the governance strategies being advanced.

Author

• Noah W Sobe, Loyola University Chicago