Lessons for What STS Can Do from the Futures Studies Field

• In Event: What STS Can Do: Innovations and Alternatives for STS Practice – I

Abstract

Like the Futures Studies (FS) field, STS has a special role that calls on extended capacities from its practitioners. To paraphrase Einstein: Problems cannot be solved by the thinking that produced the problems. Humanity is facing such a turning point and no one knows yet what the new 'thinking' will be. This creates a special role for those who believe they have capacities that, if taken up, will help movement to that new thinking. For FS this has meant becoming relevant in a world that does not often find it relevant. It is a tricky situation and tensions are high for those in the know. I propose that, like FS, STS studies' special role is to get us through the present problematic times to whatever times come next.
For this paper I will draw on experience within FS and on life course interviews with students and graduates of FS masters courses. My analysis will consider issues and experiences (of becoming otherwise) for the field, professional capacities and education. I will also compare the value of the special capacities of FS and STS in relation to the larger issue of these times. Amongst the topics I will touch are: multiplicity in various guises and transparency as an integrated awareness (including temporal transparency).

Author

• Barbara Maria Bok, Swinburne University of Technology