Transformative embodiment workshop seeking novel types of futurists
Liminal time-spaces are home to beings in transition: "bearers of the new" living in “cracks and cleavages of society” (James Dator 1977); “listeners, capturers of the seeds of change […] who do not fit the existing social character in its totality (Eleonora Masini, 1999, 2006); “the most innovative member of a system […] perceived as a deviant from the social system and […] accorded a status of low credibility” (Everett Rogers, 2003). In these niches, queer futurists embodying trans, weird and queer ways of researching the future are practicing their craft, often unseen and unnoticed by established societies such as mainstream futures and foresight communities.
From a persona-based classification of alternative types of futurists, this workshop scouts new innovative members of the futures community presently unthought of. To find them, participants will explore marginal and interstitial places, social borders and academic boundary zones, lost and in-between time-spaces as harbors of liminality.
Identifying and relating to these new types of futurists in self-reflexive fashion, workshop participants will describe their characters, skills and competences, value positions and motivations to act in a future-driven manner.
With these new futurists identified, workshop participants will ideate and craft a utopian field of futures studies capable of including and supporting their personas. From their ideations, they will derive transformative impulses for the present futures field to be shared and discussed with the general audience of the conference.