Possibility studies: A manifesto

Abstract

it – is never entirely predictable. Beyond ‘what currently is’, there is room for ‘what is not yet, but will be’, ‘what might be’ and ‘what can never be’. And the realm of the possible doesn’t stop with the future, it also helps us imagine ‘what might have been’, in the past, and what exists ‘as if’ in the present. To engage with the possible means to infuse ‘what is’ with new perspectives and, in doing so, to radically transform it (Gaggioli, 2020; Glăveanu, 2020a). Possibility Studies as a new and emergent multi-and trans-disciplinary field is dedicated to the study of this shift of focus from being to becoming, from what is to what could be, from deterministic accounts of the world to agentic, generative and open-ended understandings. We human beings live ‘amphibious’ lives – at once in the realm of the actual and the possible. By foregrounding hope, imagination, agency and creativity, we can get to fully appreciate what it means to be human in a world that oftentimes resists our needs, expectations