Thinking with Monsters

Abstract

Optimistic instrumentalism dominates the narratives and discourse(s) that attend recent technology advances. Most future-studies methods in current use depend on projecting properties, processes, facts or conditions of the present into the future. Absent is substantive engagement with the human condition and day-to-day life such technological futures entail. To critique the dominant discourse on future worlds, we offer thinking with monsters to disclose ‘living-with-technologies’ and the social, political, and economic alternatives to the optimism that pervades our rational instrumentalism. We argue that shifting the focus away from facts and towards matters of concern engenders a critical voice that enables participation in research that produces the (future) worlds that we seek to explain and understand.