Anthropologies and Futures: Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds

275 Pages·2017·3.32 MB·English

by  Juan Francisco Salazar

Anthropologies and
Futures
ii
Anthropologies
and Futures
Researching Emerging and
Uncertain Worlds
EDITED BY JUAN FRANCISCO
SALAZAR, SARAH PINK ,
ANDREW IRVING AND
JOHANNES SJÖBERG
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2017
© Selection and Editorial Material: Juan Francisco Salazar, Sarah Pink, Andrew Irving,
Johannes Sjöberg, 2017
© Individual Chapters: Their Authors, 2017
Juan Francisco Salazar, Sarah Pink, Andrew Irving, and Johannes Sjöberg have asserted
their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-6488-4
PB: 978-1-4742-6487-7
ePDF: 978-1-4742-6490-7
ePub: 978-1-4742-6489-1
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Cover image: Entrance to Global Seed Vault, Svalbard, Norway (© Cultura RM Exclusive/
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Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Contributors x
1 Futures anthropologies manifesto EASA future anthropologies
network 1
2 Anthropology and futures: Setting the agenda Sarah Pink and
Juan Francisco Salazar 3
3 The art of turning left and right Andrew Irving 23
4 Cripping the future: Making disability count Faye Ginsburg and
Rayna Rapp 43
5 Contemporary obsessions with time and the promise of the
future Simone Abram 61
6 Pyrenean rewilding and ontological landscapes: A future(s)
dwelt-in ethnographic approach Tony Knight 83
7 Digital technologies, dreams and disconcertment in
anthropological worldmaking Karen Waltorp 101
8 Future in the ethnographic world Débora Lanzeni and Elisenda
Ardèvol 117
9 Researching future as an alterity of the present Sarah Pink,
Yoko Akama and Annie Fergusson 133
10 Speculative fabulation: Researching worlds to come in
Antarctica Juan Francisco Salazar 151

11 Ethno science fiction: Projective improvisations of future
scenarios and environmental threat in the everyday life of
British youth Johannes Sjöberg 171
vi CONTENTS
12 Reaching for the horizon: Exploring existential possibilities
of migration and movement within the past-present-future
through participatory animation Alexandra D’Onofrio 189
13 Agency and dramatic storytelling: Roving through pasts,
presents and futures Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston 209
14 Remix as a literacy for future anthropology practice Annette N.
Markham 225
Afterword: Flying toward the future on the wings of wind
Paul Stoller 243
Index 249
List of F igures
Figure 3.1: 11 September 2001 23
Figure 3.2: Sandra in 2009 holding picture of herself taken on the
same spot on 11 September 2001 26
Figure 3.3: Sandra’s childhood home 29
Figure 3.4: The building where Sandra most likely caught HIV 30
Figure 3.5: Life in the Slum 31
Figure 3.6: Bed Nine 32
Figure 3.7: The Testing Clinic 32
Figure 3.8: Sandra 11 September 2001 33
Figure 5.1: Banalized urban futures materialized 65
Figure 5.2: The village idealized from the inside 68
Figure 5.3: The village seen in planning documents 70
Figure 5.4: Village houses 72
Figure 6.1: Berestet estive 87
Figure 6.2: View from Cominac 89
Figure 6.3: Eleveurs demonstrate fear of their own extinction 93
Figure 9.1: Two faces of the exterior of the Fab Pod 137
Figure 9.2: Working inside during the Essaying the Fab Pod
workshop 138
Figure 9.3: Sarah and Annie video record 140
Figure 9.4: Imagine the feeling of anticipation on walking down the
corridor 141
Figure 9.5: Shanti reached out to touch the Fab Pod’s furrier
shapes 143
viii LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 10.1: Exterior view of Julio Escudero Station in King George
Island 158
Figure 10.2: Exterior of a living quarter at the Russian Station
Bellingshausen 159
Figure 10.3: Teachers and students at School F-50, Villa Las
Estrellas 160
Figure 10.4: The fabulated character of Xue Noon (Victoria
Hunt) 164
Figure 10.5: A scene from the film Nightfall on Gaia 165
Figure 10.6: Juan F. Salazar filming in Fildes peninsula, King George
Island 167
Figure 11.1: James Hudson-Wright in Call Me Back (2017) 173
Figure 12.1: ‘My future return’ (Mahmoud) 189
Figure 12.2: Ali imagines himself imprisoned after seeing the car
lights 197
Figure 12.3: Screenshot of animation in progress 198
Figure 12.4: Ali imagines his future return to Porto Nogaro 199
Figure 12.5: Mohamed imagines receiving his residence permit at
the reception centre 201
Figure 12.6: The beautiful sea, seen from land (Mahmoud) 203
Figure 12.7: Mum and Dad (Mahmoud) 204
Acknowledgements
This book was inspired by the formation of the EASA (European Association
of Social Anthropologists) Future Anthropologies Network, established in
2014. We would like to thank all of our network colleagues and collaborators
who worked with us in the development of our collective Future Anthropologies
Manifesto, which is available online and published as Chapter 1 as a reminder
of our intent. We also thank Bloomsbury’s editorial team for their support of
our project, especially Jennifer Schmidt, Commissioning Editor, Food Studies
and Anthropology and Clara Herberg, Editorial Assistant, Anthropology and
Food Studies.