The future as an emergent problematic in geographical scholarship

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that what makes geography stand out among other academic disciplines is not its collection of methods, but instead the collection of key geographical concepts that are encountered with high frequency in its corpus of published scholarship. I illustrate how this way of thinking works in practice by taking as a case study the emergent field of the geographies of the future and suggesting that it is the very same set of key geographical concepts that makes this field stand out from the more amorphous realm of “futures studies.” I begin my analysis by providing a brief literature review of the seven main research clusters within the field of the geographies of the future: (1) risk, uncertainty, contingency, and surprise; (2) neoliberal governmentality and its management of the future; (3) prefigurative politics and visions of a postcapitalist future; (4) technological progress as a key dimension to foreseeing the future; (5) the future in light of social difference; (6) culture and the historicizing of the future; and (7) economic geographies of the future. Then, in the final part of the paper, I offer some suggestions on how the careful and creative deployment of these key geographical concepts can deepen and enrich the way we think about the future and its geographies. Specifically, I organize these suggestions into three analytical clusters, focusing on (1) distance and proximity; (2) scale; and (3) borders and territory. I then provide some final thoughts about the key concepts versus key methods controversy, arguing in favor of the former.