Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Plural Futures

• In Event: Feminist Engagements with the Im-materialites of Gender and the West

Abstract

Sociotechnical imaginaries of the future bring with them how the world ought to be ordered. Primarily dominated by elite white male perspectives from the Global North, these imageries often reinforce modernist, linear, and masculine models of progress. This paper is concerned about the ways in which the future has become an instrument for the marginalization of people across gender, ethnicity, nation, region, and generation. By building on feminist theory, I aim to open up about power relations in shaping future imaginaries. Also, I build on an empirical study to address how shaping futures, specifically economic futures, might be done differently, with different people, in different forms, and with different socio-political effects. The study introduces Emerging Economic Collectives, local organizations in the Global North concerned with the ways in which their communities are mischaracterized and eliminated from the economic discussion. What is unique about these collectives is that rather than protesting against, they are living with the system, while exercising other kinds of economic reality. By putting them in the position of the knower, these collectives were enabled to generate inherently imaginative, social, and dialogical alternatives for what might be, to aspire action and guide change. I argue that these collectives need to be recognized as instances of the pluriverse. Also, the sociotechnical imaginaries they create might constitute the most appropriate framework to expand the potential for future advances of democratic power.

Author

• Maryam Heidaripour, Illinois Institute of Technology