Past remarkable: using life stories to trace alternative futures
Article
Article Title | Past remarkable: using life stories to trace alternative futures |
---|---|
ERA Journal ID | 18535 |
Article Category | Article |
Authors | |
Author | Palmer, Jane |
Journal Title | Futures |
Journal Citation | 64, pp. 29-37 |
Number of Pages | 7 |
Year | 2014 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
ISSN | 0016-3287 |
1873-6378 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2014.10.002 |
Abstract | The paper argues that life stories and histories offer different perspectives on the past, with implications for studying the future. A life is proposed as a form of 'social site' (Marston, S.A., J.P. Jones III & K. Woodward 2005, 'Human geography without scale', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 30, pp. 416-432.) where the future is met and negotiated. Unlike the broad sweep of historical narrative, a focus on the site of a life can reveal cumulative losses, futures denied and paths not taken. Life stories challenge historical narrative with alternative futures that ‘might-have-been’; they might therefore usefully be added as a more experimental type to Inayatullah’s taxonomy of historical 'traces' (Inayatullah, S. 2012, 'Humanity 3000: A comparative analysis of methodological approaches to forecasting the long-term', Foresight, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 401-417). |
Keywords | experimentation, life stories, potential futures, historical traces, transformative learning, narrative |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 440101. Anthropology of development |
440107. Social and cultural anthropology | |
440699. Human geography not elsewhere classified | |
Public Notes | File reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/author. |
Byline Affiliations | University of Technology Sydney |
Institution of Origin | University of Southern Queensland |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/q32z1/past-remarkable-using-life-stories-to-trace-alternative-futures
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