Abstract
This article contributes to sociologies of futures by arguing that quotidian imaginations, makings and experiences of futures are crucial to social life. We develop Sharma’s concept of recalibration to understand ongoing and multiple adjustments of present–future relations, focusing on how these were articulated by Mass Observation writers in the UK during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. We identify three key modes of recalibration: fissure, where a break between the present and future means the future is difficult to imagine; standby, where the present is expanded but there is an alertness to the future, and; reset, where futures are modestly and radically recalibrated through a post-pandemic imaginary. We argue for sociologies of futures that can account for the diverse and contradictory ways in which futures emerge from and compose everyday life at different scales.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 421-437 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Sociology |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 24 Apr 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We sincerely thank Corine van Emmerik for careful and sensitive data management and coding for this project. For discussions and comments that have shaped our thinking here, we would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Susan Halford, Dale Southerton and our wider research team. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: the research was supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (Coleman, ‘Mediating presents: Producing ‘the now’ in contemporary digital culture’, RF-2017-632\8), the Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh (Bastian) and a British Academy Small Grant led by Rebecca Coleman and Dawn Lyon in collaboration with Corine van Emmerik and Chloe Turner (‘Feeling, making and imagining time: Everyday temporal experiences in the Covid-19 pandemic’, SRG2021\211073).
Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: the research was supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (Coleman, ‘Mediating presents: Producing ‘the now’ in contemporary digital culture’, RF-2017-632\8), the Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh (Bastian) and a British Academy Small Grant led by Rebecca Coleman and Dawn Lyon in collaboration with Corine van Emmerik and Chloe Turner (‘Feeling, making and imagining time: Everyday temporal experiences in the Covid-19 pandemic’, SRG2021\211073).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.