Representing personal and common futures: Insights and new connections between the theory of social representations and the pragmatic sociology of engagements
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
To understand social issues and practices such as those related to climate change and technological change that are clearly future-oriented – collectively experienced events that are “not yet” – and co-constructed by different actors, we need nuanced conceptualizations of how people think about, negotiate and co-create futures that allow us to understand not only what people (can) think and do about future-related issues but also how that happens, what for and with which implications. However, so far, one of the key theoretical approaches that has conceptualised how people make meaning in situations of change and uncertainty – the socio-psychological social representations theory (SRT) – has not often engaged with the future or with different forms of temporality. By contrast, the French pragmatic sociology of engagements and critique (PS) has engaged with these notions, conceptualising them in relation to materiality and a plurality of moral orientations – two dimensions often seen as key to how collective futures are made and imagined. To offer a more nuanced and systematic conceptualization of how people represent the future and with what consequences, this paper will present, compare and synthesise SRT and PS, as a first step towards an interdisciplinary research agenda on social change and representations of the future.
期刊介绍:
The Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour publishes original theoretical and methodological articles that examine the links between social structures and human agency embedded in behavioural practices. The Journal is truly unique in focusing first and foremost on social behaviour, over and above any disciplinary or local framing of such behaviour. In so doing, it embraces a range of theoretical orientations and, by requiring authors to write for a wide audience, the Journal is distinctively interdisciplinary and accessible to readers world-wide in the fields of psychology, sociology and philosophy.