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The politics of making and unmaking (sustainable) futures: introduction to the special feature

The politics of making and unmaking (sustainable) futures: introduction to the special feature Sustainability Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00704-w SPECIAL FEATURE: EDITORIAL The politics of making and unmaking (sustainable) futures The politics of making and unmaking (sustainable) futures: introduction to the special feature 1 1 1 1 Henrike Knappe  · Anne‑Katrin Holfelder  · David Löw Beer  · Patrizia Nanz Received: 23 April 2019 / Accepted: 7 May 2019 © The Author(s) 2019 Introduction anticipation, biographical choices or the behaviour of differ - ent social groups. Examples of future-making practices that From the onset of what we now call sustainability politics, enable and transform can be found in cities’ or civil society “the future” has been an important frame of reference for groups’ sustainability initiatives such as the transition towns political intent and action, as well as for (re)aligning one’s or urban gardening projects, as well as in geoengineering moral compass. The idea of sustainable development clearly practices and technological innovation in general. emerged from the recognition that the planet’s resources and Examples of future-making practices that preserve and capacities are limited. The paradigm of development has had sustain can be found in nature conservation politics and to be rethought in a more future-sensitive, future-oriented movements, risk politics, as well as in areas of legal regula- way, taking into account inter alia our perceived moral obli- tion—consider, for instance, the precautionary principle or gation toward future generations. In 1987, Our Common the debate over human rights for future generations. Both Future, also known as “The Brundtland Report”, famously modes of future making (transformative and preservative) expressed this new outlook thus: “development that meets are legitimated through different sustainable future narra- the needs of the present without compromising the ability of tives. They are not “naturally occurring”, a priori or “given” future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, by some external, higher authority; rather, they emerge from p 37). Since that time, the politics and policies of devel- different social and political contexts and underlying socio- opment and progress embedded in environmental concerns political norms and goals. These modes of future making and limits to growth are torn between the future-making arise, change or shift with our concrete endeavours to deal practices of enabling and transforming, on the one hand, with the future in various political arenas such as UN negoti- and those of preservation and conservation on the other. ations, social movement activities or parliamentary debates; Future-making practices are social and political endeav- in social spaces such as schools, sports clubs or book shops; ours that implicitly or explicitly establish relationships or and in accordance with economic structures, market logic, refer to future situations. This broad definition takes into investments or growth. Effective future-making practices can account practices as diverse as policy planning, scientific become powerful tools for creating (new) orders, empower- ing or excluding actors, and even for preserving or trans- forming fundamental values such as those that determine Handled by Osamu Saito, United Nations University Institute for what people perceive as the “good life” or a desirable future. the Advanced Study of Sustainability, Japan. Power inequalities and power struggles are thus part of any future-making practice, and making these asymmetries We thank the participants of the IASS-workshop on “Futurisation explicit is one major task as regards the political dimension of Politics” for the inspiring discussions and helpful comments. of future making in sustainability politics. This means that a Furthermore, we thank Barbara Muraca, Barbara Adam and Graham Smith for their valuable comments on earlier versions of first step would be to ask who is involved in making futures, this article. why are specific measures taken, and what kind of futures result (Vervoort and Gupta 2018). To raise these questions * Anne-Katrin Holfelder and examine them is one of the main goals of this special Anne-Katrin.Holfelder@iass-potsdam.de feature. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V., Potsdam, Germany Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Sustainability Science In approaching these questions, we observe with some of peoples’ actions and responsibilities, different modes of vexation that making futures more sustainable is often seen future making emerged and competed with each other for as a matter of technological, scientific or economic endeav - acceptance. On a more general level, a well-established dis- our but not as something of political concern: futures have tinction of “futures” is that of present futures and future become depoliticized. Our second main aim, therefore, presents (Luhmann 1990; Adam and Groves 2007). Present will be to (re)conceive and discuss possible ways to over- futures are utopian notions based on images of a dreaded come power asymmetries, inequalities and exclusions in future or a desired one—for example, the ecological crisis future making. We view the political as normative and we (in the case of the former) or the emancipation from the argue that, in sustainability politics, to do justice to present yoke of political oppression (in the case of the latter). In this and future generations, it is not enough to approach issues regard, present futures are phenomenological approaches to concerning the future only from a technocratic or mana- the future. The future lies beyond a time horizon that delin- gerial perspective. It is necessary that contemporary future eates it from the present; it can be approached but never practices be opened up to public scrutiny and contestation; reached (like the horizon that delineates the earth from the this is what we refer to as politicization (Zürn et al. 2012). sky) (Luhmann 1990, p 132). In contrast, science and tech- “Reintroduc[ing] the political” (Lövbrand et al. 2015, p 216) nology attempt to measure and anticipate the future presents, has become an urgent matter for debates about the future the actual presents that come immediately after the present of the planet and its inhabitants, and for developing corre- present. According to Luhmann, science and technology try sponding, appropriate future practices. Politicization entails to reduce the complexity of future presents by cutting them a broadening of practices towards more pluralistic and imag- into smaller sequences bound by correlations and causali- inative understandings of the future, and putting measures ties that reach back into the (present) present; thus, science in place to ensure equal access to processes for developing and technology are supposed to give people in the present such practices. Politicization is based on an understanding of choices and the ability to act upon the future (ibid.). Both sustainability in which the contested character of democracy modes of the future faced severe crises in the twentieth cen- figures as a necessary and productive component. tury. Present futures seem to have failed to fulfil the hopes With this special feature, we hope to shed light on social that were connected to them. The grand utopic visions of and political practices that make or unmake sustainable socialism, communism, capitalism or even democracy did futures. Future-making practices take place in complex tem- not live up to the hopes that people and societies projected poralities. They evolve from multiple interactions between onto them. As a consequence, these utopic visions vanished the production, use and organization of knowledge about from the political sphere and are more likely to be found the future (Granjou et al. 2017), the structural restrictions now in societal niches. Future presents and with them the imposed on collective and individual actors dealing with societal, reductive belief that scientific method can secure the future (Sardar 1999), the impulses and necessities of and guarantee the future (Adam and Groves 2007, p 171) change, the visions of the future and the ideas that deter- have been shattered with equal ferocity. With the emerging mine our perception of it (Leccardi 2012; Milkoreit 2016; failures of long-term prediction—for example, of the con- Appadurai 2013), and the ethical principles determining sequences of nuclear energy use—the future has become an what constitutes a just and “good” future (Adam and Groves ever more precarious and unpredictable matter in modernity 2007). Building on different debates in the fields of educa- (Adam 2010). These crises—the failure of visionary poten- tion, environmental humanities, history, political economy, tial and predictability of the future, respectively—in modern political science, science and technology studies and soci- Western societies have led to changing ideas for approach- ology, this special feature aims to critically and explicitly ing the future as a social phenomenon. Nowotny (1994), for analyse the pitfalls and problems of future-making practices example, states that the future is captured by and vanishes in and to develop a more nuanced understanding of practices an ever expanding present. The sequencing of time periods for a sustainable future and the conditions that enable them. into smaller units and their effects on people’s experience of time are also contained in Rosa’s thesis of an accelera- tion of almost every part of life, which he sees rooted in the Temporal politics—the future as political capitalist logic requiring steady growth and profit making (Rosa 2016). Historically, the capacity to envision, plan, and make futures Beyond those grand narratives, we also want to explore has been a powerful resource, and it still is today (Koselleck the actual practices of future making that occur within those 2004). Power struggles over perceptions of the future shape broader structures (e.g. economic and political systems) and how politics is done in and for the present as well as for discourses, often challenging them. Here, we want to out- the future. When the future ceased to be a matter of fate in line the different ways of referring to the future and build- the hands of gods (Adam 2010) and shifted into the realm ing futures, grasping their conflictual nature, contradictions 1 3 Sustainability Science and specific character traits. This special feature points to and Neckel 2019). Sustainability politics are thus attempts blind spots in the political and social dimensions of future to make an uncertain future (more) predictable and possibly making. It seeks to investigate what kind of things block governable. transformation process and what the potentials for these pro- Before we turn to some of the normative approaches cesses are. Roughly adopting the broader distinction between that we find useful for further exploring the possibilities of future presents and present futures, we want to distinguish politicizing the future, we want to briefly outline the main between future-making practices that refer to futures for the critical assessments of the politics of current future making present as concrete visions and plans intended to facilitate in Western societies to explore the who, why and what of decisions in the present, and those that refer to presents for future-making practices. These criticisms point primarily the future as images and knowledge that evolve in the pre- to the exclusive circles of future making, the unequal and sent and affect the future in different ways. Futures for the abbreviated societal futures and the plundering or coloniza- present are built, for example and among other things, by tion of the future itself (Adam and Groves 2007). highlighting pathways for developing viable climate policy The rise of scientific prediction and forecasting methods (Beck and Mahony 2017) or by envisioning utopian techno- and technologies has had an enormous impact on the state logical futures in climate engineering. On the other hand, of anticipation in which we currently live (Granjou et al. presents for the future emerge, for example, from practices 2017). Futures are widely viewed through the lens of scien- of political decision-making on renewable energy or how tific anticipation. The belief in an anticipated and thus secure public investments are made. While we can observe futures (determined) future has spread into many areas of political for the present and presents for the future as concrete prac- and social life. Anticipation has transformed many areas of tices of future making, both modes are also connected to science itself away from exploring real-world phenomena each other. For example, concrete visions can potentially towards speculating about potential phenomena and events materialize in transformative actions; in so doing, they can (ibid). Exclusively relying on forms of scientific anticipation have impacts on the future and thereby become presents for can have tremendous effects on sustainability politics, as the future. Conversely, the different futures implied by con- the example of foresight shows. Foresight entails the criti- crete actions and decisions can have an effect on how people cal analysis of long-term developments, and the discussion envision their own or societal futures and, in so doing, these and implementation of future-oriented strategies. Solution- implied futures thus become relevant for creating futures oriented foresight has meant shifting away from merely for the present. These future-making practices can influence projecting likely developments to actively shaping futures. whether people see the future as something predetermined, For example, in the wake of its Fourth Assessment Report as something isolated from them or as an open space to be (2007), the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) filled. Zooming in on current power struggles over future altered its strategy for the construction of Emission Con- outlooks, we see that “future” in the field of environmen- centration Pathways and implemented the new Representa- tal policymaking is often narrowly defined in anticipatory tive Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Before RCPs, various scientific terms, that (young) people disengage with future scenarios had been constructed, with each making different planning and visioning, and that particularly the “economi- assumptions about the future development of various physi- zation” of future practices closes potential spaces of action cal, ecological, and socioeconomic phenomena. RCPs, in for future generations. Adam (1998), for example, captures contrast, are based only on anticipated greenhouse gas con- those patterns as “industrial time”, which is structured by centrations or radiative forcing (RF) and do not anticipate “(a) the invariable beat of the clock, (b) the economic com- particular social or technical developments. Critics allege modification of time and (c) the scientific use of time as that the highly ambitious RCP 2.6 presents the 2 °C target as measure for abstract motion.” (Adam 1998, p 11). This lin- a technically feasible goal (Beck and Mahony 2017), with- ear, economic and laboratory conception of time strongly out clearly elucidating its (RCP 2.6’s) hypothetical aspects, influences contemporary sustainability politics and turns a namely that this pathway relies on as-yet non-existent nega- blind eye to all the other temporalities of environmental deg- tive emission technologies (NETs) and high carbon prices radation or hazards that we face today (ibid.). More recently, (Van Vuuren et al. 2011). Although it is explicitly intended sustainability politics also claims “to rethink and redesign to create solutions for urgent environmental problems, scien- the prevailing temporal orders of human-nature relation- tific knowledge about the future might not have the desired ships” (Bornemann and Strassheim 2019). Governing time political impact; instead, it tends to neutralize “attempts at in innovative ways is a central feature of sustainability poli- collective anticipatory action to prevent further degradation tics, Bornemann and Strassheim argue. Strategies for social of ecological order” (Granjou et al. 2017, p 7). change towards sustainability will vary with regard to their On a societal level, Leccardi (2012) describes a “cri- emphasis on “various temporal aspects, such as reform, rup- sis of the future” for Western societies. Unlike the Baby- ture, innovation or short- and long-term adaptation” (Adloff Boomer generation, who were united by a positive vision 1 3 Sustainability Science of the future, members of the Millennial Generation face sustainable development pathways. Mainstream economic an unknown and contingent future which they respond to models also lack the ability to account for historic as well by either embracing flexibility and change (“future with- as qualitative change, and they ignore path dependencies. out a project”) or engaging in short-term projects wherein Time is wrongly considered to be reversible in some sense the future is perceived as an “extended present” (Nowotny (Hicks 1976, p 135), as if it were possible to always restore 1994). On both approaches, openness is absent. It is more something. And it is usually assumed that technology can often the case that young people with limited economic and substitute for nature. This view has major implications social resources will view the future as an extended present. for the future: it creates the illusion that a society is on a As a consequence, “the future is not seen as something one sustainable trajectory as long as the sum of all capital (i.e. acts on, but rather as something which acts upon oneself” manufactured, financial, social, human, and natural) does (Holfelder 2019). Planning for the future becomes irrele- not decrease. This implies that people in the present can vant and loses its meaning (Leccardi 2012, p 66). Time is substitute nature with technology or, as argued earlier, that experienced as accelerated and momentary experiences are present generations can devastate the natural environment overlain with a constant feeling of busyness (Rosa 2016). provided that they bequeath to future generations enough Technological innovations promote “an ideology of the pre- money or goods to offset the damage. sent, an ideology of the future now, which in turn paralyses all thought about the future” (Augé 2014, p 3). The effects of social inequalities and global injustices in the present Politicizing future making: relations also shape many people’s outlooks on the future. Many and openings societal groups do not have the opportunities to plan their own futures or to emancipate themselves from hegemonic, We learn from those critical accounts of future making that imposed visions of the future (ibid.). Many people in the not only are the opportunities of future generations dimin- Global South do not have the capacity to aspire to futures ished, but so too are the agency and possible futures of many that are independent from the Western-dominated Global people living in the present. This impoverishes the scope North (Appadurai 2013). All of this indicates an inability and diversity of future visions, and weakens the individual to imagine or conceive alternative (emancipated) futures, and collective capacity to imagine and act upon alternatives, although being able to do so is an essential precondition for because “[o]ur imagination is to a large extent bound to the being able to design sustainable futures. systems we live in” (Milkoreit 2016, p 172). Thus, in the fol- In addition to present inequalities in future practices, the lowing paragraphs, we argue from the normative perspective capacity of future generations to act and decide upon politi- that it must be acknowledged that future-making practices cal issues is diminished by political actions in the present are always tied to present economic, political and societal (Adam and Groves 2007; Caney 2009; Thompson 2010). contexts. However, in those contexts is still room to resist Political decisions, for example, favouring nuclear energy or and to transform and shape established (future) practices subsidizing energy-intense industries, deeply affect future (Butler 2004). Hence, the specific contexts in which people generations. This has been possible up to now because future live and the relationships—be they harmful or empower- generations and their life circumstances have been largely ing—that exist between individuals feed into the possible “decontextualized and depersonalized” to “plunder and practices of democratic, sustainable, and pluralized futures. pollute [into the future] with impunity” (Adam and Groves Future practices can only be seen as something performed in 2007, p 13)]. Such practices are based on a commodifica- the contexts and presence of human beings who are bound tion of the future whereby the future is treated as if it were together by “inhabit[ing] the world” (Arendt 1958, p XII). a good that can be traded against the present and, at the Acknowledging these de facto, default unchosen relations is same time, remain unconnected to it. Mainstream economic the only way to extend equity beyond borders: models assume trade-offs between present and future con- [T]he political aim is to extend equality … to those sumption and production; within such models, future costs none of us ever chose (or did not recognize that we and benefits are usually valued less than present ones. This chose) and with whom we have an enduring obliga- practice of social discounting (Ramsey 1928) thus reduces tion to find a way to live. For whoever “we” are, we the incentives for longer term investments aligned to more are also those who were never chosen, who emerge on this earth without everyone’s consent, and who belong, from the start, to a wider population and a sustainable earth (Butler 2015, p 116). This refers to the big debate on intergenerational justice and sus- tainability politics, where different criteria for the harm done to future generations are discussed. We do not have the space here to outline the debate in detail. 1 3 Sustainability Science On a global level, Butler (2015) defines this relational task becomes to politicize the future, that is, to open up account as cohabitation of the earth. Although she makes future making to public contestation and wider circles of her case with respect to present, global humanity, “human- society and to shift or change the dominant ways we have ity” can also be read to include temporally distant future of dealing with it. Wright (2010) argues that, while major generations, because the theory she proposes is based on systemic disruption such as revolution is implausible in the mutual dependence of human lives. In the same way liberal capitalist societies, the potential for openings still that humans depend on one another in the present, they also exists. Such openings can lead to minor adaptions within depend on the legacy left to them by people in the past (just the current system or to major emancipatory shifts. How as future generations will depend on the legacy we leave a “real utopia” (Wright 2010) can be put into practice will them). This and other concepts of intergenerational justice depend largely on the inherent future visions. According to rest on ideas of interpersonal relations and responsibilities Wright, “real utopias” are necessary pragmatic interventions (Groves 2014; Fritsch 2018). According to Rosa (2016); that allow us to “embrace […] this tension between dreams to live a good and meaningful life, we must establish and and practice” (ibid.: 4). Our ability to conceive of ways to maintain relationships of resonance. When individuals are resist hegemonic dominance is shaped by our visions of the isolated and alienated from past, present and future persons, future; conversely, in the absence of these visions, emanci- they tend to perceive their responsibility towards future gen- patory practices cannot emerge (ibid.). Thus, political spaces erations as a loss (detraction from their own well-being) or a in which multiple future visions and practices can be made burden (Faets and Tamoudi 2017). Therefore, relationships visible and enabled are crucial for any democratic considera- to past and future generations seem crucial for strengthening tions of the future. positive pathways towards the future. Chris Groves goes a Going beyond sociotechnical futures and opening up step further, suggesting that we look at people in the future for more diverse visions is also a methodological matter. as potential co-creators of their own present. For example, acknowledging the co-production and rela- The concept of generativity defines conditions under tionality of future visions in energy transition (away from which these relations from one generation to the next can coal and nuclear powered to safer and more environmen- be established (King 2015, p 29). Being “generative” means tally friendly renewable sources) can pave the way to better caring and providing resources (including time) for a future detecting, reconstructing and understanding the plethora of from which one is excluded. This means that the current diverse future visions resulting from public and civil soci- generations must recognize their own transience—a feat ety interventions as Longhurst and Chilvers show in this not easily accomplished because in today’s modern socie- special feature. Low and Schäfer (2019) show how different ties “limits” are perceived negatively (ibid.). Continuity is predictive and anticipatory methods in climate engineering also needed for change (King 2013; Leccardi 2012). The create futures that are predominantly economic and techni- societal interpretative patterns that have emerged in the cal; they point to methods that open up diverse scenarios past create continuity and provide linking points between through deliberative stakeholder engagement. Shifting the generations. They set the framework conditions in which perspective from a purely managerial approach to time and the individual holds the potential for discontinuity (and thus future, to future making as open and experimental practices change) through his/her reinterpretation of the framework. also provides us with new insights (David and Gross 2019). Situating oneself in historical and social time is a neces- Here, we can see the great potential in education (Kaufmann sary first step for initiating change. Because modern socie- et al. 2019) because educational settings can offer spaces for ties tend to emphasize ahistorical concepts of progress, they critical thinking and reflection as well as spaces for experi- also tend to overlook these interpretive patterns built into mentation and conceiving or developing alternatives. their worlds by previous generations. Generativity stresses the importance of tangible relations between past, present and future generations; this is crucial because it overcomes The contributions abstract and detached notions of future beings for whom it is difficult—challenging, to say the least—to feel any affinity This special feature begins with an essay by Lucian Höls- for or responsibility towards. cher on the temporal notion of “future pasts” in historical If we acknowledge the relationality that is inherently and novels, everyday practices and politics (Hölscher 2019). In necessarily connected to future-making practices, then the fictional settings, future archaeologists construct a past (the author’s present) and, in so doing, open up a plethora of pos- sible presents and futures. Hölscher claims that viewing the present from one specific, anticipated future standpoint is a Arendt claims that human beings cannot choose to deny the hetero- common, everyday modern practice, which unburdens the geneity of human life on Earth and thus are bound together by this present by freeing it of ambiguities. Future pasts provide us unchosen mutual obligation to grant one another freedom. 1 3 Sustainability Science with a powerful instrument to interpret and validate present the empirical studies that show that people today feel gen- politics (futures for the present). erally incapable of shaping society or their own long-term Two articles in this volume deal with the political, theo- future (Holfelder 2019). Holfelder criticizes the notion of retical and ethical connotations of future-making practices. education understood solely as training (measured on con- Rosine Kelz raises the question of future orientation in crete outcomes) and argues for a notion of education as “sub- political theories (Kelz 2019). She analyses the work of jectification” (Biesta 2016) which holds important possibili- Arendt, Cavell and Derrida, and interprets them in terms of ties for opening futures. their potential for open futures. Instead of arguing the neces- Two contributions in the area of science policy concep- sity of some new political theory which would incorporate tualize future-making practices in terms of their underly- long-term perspectives to address current ecological threats ing epistemologies. Sean Low and Stefan Schäfer describe (e.g. climate change), she contends that future orientation is different kinds of “future making” in climate engineering already inherent in the theory of democracy. approaches (Low and Schäfer 2019). The authors present Christopher Groves juxtaposes the modern concept of the an analysis of different approaches in climate engineering, future as an extension of the present self, (futures for the based on methodological objectives, epistemologies and present as Hölscher described it) and the reflexive counter- user communities. Some of these methods are characterized concept where future is something “wholly other” than the as deductive, whereby the future is derived from (present) present and burdened with unintended consequences of probabilities; others are described as deliberative, whereby the present (presents for the future) (Groves 2019). Groves a future is conceived, which includes space for projection. argues that neither is convincing as moral political tenet. In Alejandro Esguerra argues that objects matter in the contrast, Groves suggests to conceptualize future through construction of futures (Esguerra 2019). Instruments, data- theories of attachments where present and future people are bases and power point presentations perform a political task, connected in solidarity through the “holding environment” whenever they provide consensual knowledge about the in which they both exist. future that enables policymakers to design rules in the pre- Educational approaches to sustainable futures are offered sent. Future objects are also involved in creating futures. For three contributions to this special feature. Sarah Amsler example, Foresight Conferences deal with strategic planning identifies a “blind spot” in analyses of social and ecological for the future with the aim to pursue novel visions of sustain- justice based on currently dominant ontological principles able futures in the Anthropocene (Hajer and Pelzer 2018). In (Amsler 2019). Today’s popular ontology relies on sepa- considering differences between various objects, Alejandro ration or separateness (individualism carried to its logical Esguerra elaborates on the sociomaterial politics of antici- extreme), rationality and certainty which, taken together, pation, especially with regard to science policy interaction. promote and sustain unsustainability. Education based on Two contributions engage with questions of how futures this paradigm will close down future possibilities because for the present and presents for the future are inevitably learners will not be able to conceive and develop real alter- interconnected in the area of energy policy using the con- natives. Instead education needs to leave its safe haven crete example of energy transition practices. Noel Longhurst (embedded in the present ontological framework) and be and Jason Chilvers map different energy transition visions reconceived as an experimental space for developing radical and show how these visions emerge from multiple contexts possibilities based on the assumption of a radical and open beyond mere technical ideas and top-down dictates (Long- understanding of future. hurst and Chilvers 2019). The authors argue that such transi- The members of “Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie” (“Labo- tion visions, even if they appear purely technical, are always ratory for New Economic Ideas”) Nadine Kaufmann, Chris- normative in promoting specific political and social orders. toph Sanders and Julian Wortmann share the view that Martin David and Matthias Groß investigate processes of educational approaches which fail to address the causes of abandoning technologies (David and Gross 2019). They call unsustainability will invariably support the unsustainable these “exnovations”—the “flipside” or reverse of innova- status quo (Kaufmann et al. 2019). The authors argue from tions and real-world experiments. Analysing different cases a degrowth perspective and consider today’s popular mental- from the energy sector, David and Groß develop hypotheses ity oriented towards competition and individualism (to the of what might be a favourable circumstance for exnovation, exclusion of collective action and social solidarity) as being for example, an event which is publicly perceived as cata- at the root of the crisis. They present their own educational strophic, like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The authors work in which they address problematic non-sustainable point to a blind spot in the sustainability literature, which infrastructures. results from the overemphasis placed on innovation. Anne-Katrin Holfelder observes the gap between the In the final section of our special feature, two contribu- high-expectation society places on its educational institu- tions suggest categorizations of how future making is done tions to educate people for creating a sustainable future and in sustainability politics. 1 3 Sustainability Science Esguerra A (2019) Future Objects: Tracing the Socio-Material Politics Basil Bornemann and Holger Strassheim distinguish of Anticipation. Sustain Sci different modes of governing time in sustainability poli- Faets S, Tamoudi N (2017) Neue Perspektiven auf die normativen tics and propose an analytical scheme of time governance Grundlagen der Debatte um intergenerationelle Gerechtigkeit. (Bornemann and Strassheim 2019). They reconstruct how www .hfph.de/forsc hung/dr itt mitte lpr oj ekte/zuk ue nf tig e-g ener ation en/publi k atio nen/neue-persp ektiv en-auf-die-nor ma tiven time becomes an important factor in sustainability practices: -g r und lagen -der-debat te-um-inter gener ation elle-ger ec htigk eit. here the role of time can be distinguished, for example, with pdf/view. Accessed 28 June 2018 regard to planning instruments and transition implementa- Fritsch M (2018) Taking turns with the Earth: phenomenology, tion instruments; or time sequences can be looked at as deconstruction, and intergenerational justice. Stanford Univer- sity Press, Stanford determining factors for governance. These different temporal Granjou C, Walker, Salazar J (2017) Guest Editorial to the special practices create diverse timescapes of sustainability. issue ‘Politics of Anticipation: on knowing and governing envi- Frank Adloff and Sighard Neckel analyse the sustain- ronmental futures’. 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The politics of making and unmaking (sustainable) futures: introduction to the special feature

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Environment; Environmental Management; Climate Change Management and Policy; Environmental Economics; Landscape Ecology; Sustainable Development; Public Health
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Sustainability Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00704-w SPECIAL FEATURE: EDITORIAL The politics of making and unmaking (sustainable) futures The politics of making and unmaking (sustainable) futures: introduction to the special feature 1 1 1 1 Henrike Knappe  · Anne‑Katrin Holfelder  · David Löw Beer  · Patrizia Nanz Received: 23 April 2019 / Accepted: 7 May 2019 © The Author(s) 2019 Introduction anticipation, biographical choices or the behaviour of differ - ent social groups. Examples of future-making practices that From the onset of what we now call sustainability politics, enable and transform can be found in cities’ or civil society “the future” has been an important frame of reference for groups’ sustainability initiatives such as the transition towns political intent and action, as well as for (re)aligning one’s or urban gardening projects, as well as in geoengineering moral compass. The idea of sustainable development clearly practices and technological innovation in general. emerged from the recognition that the planet’s resources and Examples of future-making practices that preserve and capacities are limited. The paradigm of development has had sustain can be found in nature conservation politics and to be rethought in a more future-sensitive, future-oriented movements, risk politics, as well as in areas of legal regula- way, taking into account inter alia our perceived moral obli- tion—consider, for instance, the precautionary principle or gation toward future generations. In 1987, Our Common the debate over human rights for future generations. Both Future, also known as “The Brundtland Report”, famously modes of future making (transformative and preservative) expressed this new outlook thus: “development that meets are legitimated through different sustainable future narra- the needs of the present without compromising the ability of tives. They are not “naturally occurring”, a priori or “given” future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, by some external, higher authority; rather, they emerge from p 37). Since that time, the politics and policies of devel- different social and political contexts and underlying socio- opment and progress embedded in environmental concerns political norms and goals. These modes of future making and limits to growth are torn between the future-making arise, change or shift with our concrete endeavours to deal practices of enabling and transforming, on the one hand, with the future in various political arenas such as UN negoti- and those of preservation and conservation on the other. ations, social movement activities or parliamentary debates; Future-making practices are social and political endeav- in social spaces such as schools, sports clubs or book shops; ours that implicitly or explicitly establish relationships or and in accordance with economic structures, market logic, refer to future situations. This broad definition takes into investments or growth. Effective future-making practices can account practices as diverse as policy planning, scientific become powerful tools for creating (new) orders, empower- ing or excluding actors, and even for preserving or trans- forming fundamental values such as those that determine Handled by Osamu Saito, United Nations University Institute for what people perceive as the “good life” or a desirable future. the Advanced Study of Sustainability, Japan. Power inequalities and power struggles are thus part of any future-making practice, and making these asymmetries We thank the participants of the IASS-workshop on “Futurisation explicit is one major task as regards the political dimension of Politics” for the inspiring discussions and helpful comments. of future making in sustainability politics. This means that a Furthermore, we thank Barbara Muraca, Barbara Adam and Graham Smith for their valuable comments on earlier versions of first step would be to ask who is involved in making futures, this article. why are specific measures taken, and what kind of futures result (Vervoort and Gupta 2018). To raise these questions * Anne-Katrin Holfelder and examine them is one of the main goals of this special Anne-Katrin.Holfelder@iass-potsdam.de feature. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V., Potsdam, Germany Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Sustainability Science In approaching these questions, we observe with some of peoples’ actions and responsibilities, different modes of vexation that making futures more sustainable is often seen future making emerged and competed with each other for as a matter of technological, scientific or economic endeav - acceptance. On a more general level, a well-established dis- our but not as something of political concern: futures have tinction of “futures” is that of present futures and future become depoliticized. Our second main aim, therefore, presents (Luhmann 1990; Adam and Groves 2007). Present will be to (re)conceive and discuss possible ways to over- futures are utopian notions based on images of a dreaded come power asymmetries, inequalities and exclusions in future or a desired one—for example, the ecological crisis future making. We view the political as normative and we (in the case of the former) or the emancipation from the argue that, in sustainability politics, to do justice to present yoke of political oppression (in the case of the latter). In this and future generations, it is not enough to approach issues regard, present futures are phenomenological approaches to concerning the future only from a technocratic or mana- the future. The future lies beyond a time horizon that delin- gerial perspective. It is necessary that contemporary future eates it from the present; it can be approached but never practices be opened up to public scrutiny and contestation; reached (like the horizon that delineates the earth from the this is what we refer to as politicization (Zürn et al. 2012). sky) (Luhmann 1990, p 132). In contrast, science and tech- “Reintroduc[ing] the political” (Lövbrand et al. 2015, p 216) nology attempt to measure and anticipate the future presents, has become an urgent matter for debates about the future the actual presents that come immediately after the present of the planet and its inhabitants, and for developing corre- present. According to Luhmann, science and technology try sponding, appropriate future practices. Politicization entails to reduce the complexity of future presents by cutting them a broadening of practices towards more pluralistic and imag- into smaller sequences bound by correlations and causali- inative understandings of the future, and putting measures ties that reach back into the (present) present; thus, science in place to ensure equal access to processes for developing and technology are supposed to give people in the present such practices. Politicization is based on an understanding of choices and the ability to act upon the future (ibid.). Both sustainability in which the contested character of democracy modes of the future faced severe crises in the twentieth cen- figures as a necessary and productive component. tury. Present futures seem to have failed to fulfil the hopes With this special feature, we hope to shed light on social that were connected to them. The grand utopic visions of and political practices that make or unmake sustainable socialism, communism, capitalism or even democracy did futures. Future-making practices take place in complex tem- not live up to the hopes that people and societies projected poralities. They evolve from multiple interactions between onto them. As a consequence, these utopic visions vanished the production, use and organization of knowledge about from the political sphere and are more likely to be found the future (Granjou et al. 2017), the structural restrictions now in societal niches. Future presents and with them the imposed on collective and individual actors dealing with societal, reductive belief that scientific method can secure the future (Sardar 1999), the impulses and necessities of and guarantee the future (Adam and Groves 2007, p 171) change, the visions of the future and the ideas that deter- have been shattered with equal ferocity. With the emerging mine our perception of it (Leccardi 2012; Milkoreit 2016; failures of long-term prediction—for example, of the con- Appadurai 2013), and the ethical principles determining sequences of nuclear energy use—the future has become an what constitutes a just and “good” future (Adam and Groves ever more precarious and unpredictable matter in modernity 2007). Building on different debates in the fields of educa- (Adam 2010). These crises—the failure of visionary poten- tion, environmental humanities, history, political economy, tial and predictability of the future, respectively—in modern political science, science and technology studies and soci- Western societies have led to changing ideas for approach- ology, this special feature aims to critically and explicitly ing the future as a social phenomenon. Nowotny (1994), for analyse the pitfalls and problems of future-making practices example, states that the future is captured by and vanishes in and to develop a more nuanced understanding of practices an ever expanding present. The sequencing of time periods for a sustainable future and the conditions that enable them. into smaller units and their effects on people’s experience of time are also contained in Rosa’s thesis of an accelera- tion of almost every part of life, which he sees rooted in the Temporal politics—the future as political capitalist logic requiring steady growth and profit making (Rosa 2016). Historically, the capacity to envision, plan, and make futures Beyond those grand narratives, we also want to explore has been a powerful resource, and it still is today (Koselleck the actual practices of future making that occur within those 2004). Power struggles over perceptions of the future shape broader structures (e.g. economic and political systems) and how politics is done in and for the present as well as for discourses, often challenging them. Here, we want to out- the future. When the future ceased to be a matter of fate in line the different ways of referring to the future and build- the hands of gods (Adam 2010) and shifted into the realm ing futures, grasping their conflictual nature, contradictions 1 3 Sustainability Science and specific character traits. This special feature points to and Neckel 2019). Sustainability politics are thus attempts blind spots in the political and social dimensions of future to make an uncertain future (more) predictable and possibly making. It seeks to investigate what kind of things block governable. transformation process and what the potentials for these pro- Before we turn to some of the normative approaches cesses are. Roughly adopting the broader distinction between that we find useful for further exploring the possibilities of future presents and present futures, we want to distinguish politicizing the future, we want to briefly outline the main between future-making practices that refer to futures for the critical assessments of the politics of current future making present as concrete visions and plans intended to facilitate in Western societies to explore the who, why and what of decisions in the present, and those that refer to presents for future-making practices. These criticisms point primarily the future as images and knowledge that evolve in the pre- to the exclusive circles of future making, the unequal and sent and affect the future in different ways. Futures for the abbreviated societal futures and the plundering or coloniza- present are built, for example and among other things, by tion of the future itself (Adam and Groves 2007). highlighting pathways for developing viable climate policy The rise of scientific prediction and forecasting methods (Beck and Mahony 2017) or by envisioning utopian techno- and technologies has had an enormous impact on the state logical futures in climate engineering. On the other hand, of anticipation in which we currently live (Granjou et al. presents for the future emerge, for example, from practices 2017). Futures are widely viewed through the lens of scien- of political decision-making on renewable energy or how tific anticipation. The belief in an anticipated and thus secure public investments are made. While we can observe futures (determined) future has spread into many areas of political for the present and presents for the future as concrete prac- and social life. Anticipation has transformed many areas of tices of future making, both modes are also connected to science itself away from exploring real-world phenomena each other. For example, concrete visions can potentially towards speculating about potential phenomena and events materialize in transformative actions; in so doing, they can (ibid). Exclusively relying on forms of scientific anticipation have impacts on the future and thereby become presents for can have tremendous effects on sustainability politics, as the future. Conversely, the different futures implied by con- the example of foresight shows. Foresight entails the criti- crete actions and decisions can have an effect on how people cal analysis of long-term developments, and the discussion envision their own or societal futures and, in so doing, these and implementation of future-oriented strategies. Solution- implied futures thus become relevant for creating futures oriented foresight has meant shifting away from merely for the present. These future-making practices can influence projecting likely developments to actively shaping futures. whether people see the future as something predetermined, For example, in the wake of its Fourth Assessment Report as something isolated from them or as an open space to be (2007), the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) filled. Zooming in on current power struggles over future altered its strategy for the construction of Emission Con- outlooks, we see that “future” in the field of environmen- centration Pathways and implemented the new Representa- tal policymaking is often narrowly defined in anticipatory tive Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Before RCPs, various scientific terms, that (young) people disengage with future scenarios had been constructed, with each making different planning and visioning, and that particularly the “economi- assumptions about the future development of various physi- zation” of future practices closes potential spaces of action cal, ecological, and socioeconomic phenomena. RCPs, in for future generations. Adam (1998), for example, captures contrast, are based only on anticipated greenhouse gas con- those patterns as “industrial time”, which is structured by centrations or radiative forcing (RF) and do not anticipate “(a) the invariable beat of the clock, (b) the economic com- particular social or technical developments. Critics allege modification of time and (c) the scientific use of time as that the highly ambitious RCP 2.6 presents the 2 °C target as measure for abstract motion.” (Adam 1998, p 11). This lin- a technically feasible goal (Beck and Mahony 2017), with- ear, economic and laboratory conception of time strongly out clearly elucidating its (RCP 2.6’s) hypothetical aspects, influences contemporary sustainability politics and turns a namely that this pathway relies on as-yet non-existent nega- blind eye to all the other temporalities of environmental deg- tive emission technologies (NETs) and high carbon prices radation or hazards that we face today (ibid.). More recently, (Van Vuuren et al. 2011). Although it is explicitly intended sustainability politics also claims “to rethink and redesign to create solutions for urgent environmental problems, scien- the prevailing temporal orders of human-nature relation- tific knowledge about the future might not have the desired ships” (Bornemann and Strassheim 2019). Governing time political impact; instead, it tends to neutralize “attempts at in innovative ways is a central feature of sustainability poli- collective anticipatory action to prevent further degradation tics, Bornemann and Strassheim argue. Strategies for social of ecological order” (Granjou et al. 2017, p 7). change towards sustainability will vary with regard to their On a societal level, Leccardi (2012) describes a “cri- emphasis on “various temporal aspects, such as reform, rup- sis of the future” for Western societies. Unlike the Baby- ture, innovation or short- and long-term adaptation” (Adloff Boomer generation, who were united by a positive vision 1 3 Sustainability Science of the future, members of the Millennial Generation face sustainable development pathways. Mainstream economic an unknown and contingent future which they respond to models also lack the ability to account for historic as well by either embracing flexibility and change (“future with- as qualitative change, and they ignore path dependencies. out a project”) or engaging in short-term projects wherein Time is wrongly considered to be reversible in some sense the future is perceived as an “extended present” (Nowotny (Hicks 1976, p 135), as if it were possible to always restore 1994). On both approaches, openness is absent. It is more something. And it is usually assumed that technology can often the case that young people with limited economic and substitute for nature. This view has major implications social resources will view the future as an extended present. for the future: it creates the illusion that a society is on a As a consequence, “the future is not seen as something one sustainable trajectory as long as the sum of all capital (i.e. acts on, but rather as something which acts upon oneself” manufactured, financial, social, human, and natural) does (Holfelder 2019). Planning for the future becomes irrele- not decrease. This implies that people in the present can vant and loses its meaning (Leccardi 2012, p 66). Time is substitute nature with technology or, as argued earlier, that experienced as accelerated and momentary experiences are present generations can devastate the natural environment overlain with a constant feeling of busyness (Rosa 2016). provided that they bequeath to future generations enough Technological innovations promote “an ideology of the pre- money or goods to offset the damage. sent, an ideology of the future now, which in turn paralyses all thought about the future” (Augé 2014, p 3). The effects of social inequalities and global injustices in the present Politicizing future making: relations also shape many people’s outlooks on the future. Many and openings societal groups do not have the opportunities to plan their own futures or to emancipate themselves from hegemonic, We learn from those critical accounts of future making that imposed visions of the future (ibid.). Many people in the not only are the opportunities of future generations dimin- Global South do not have the capacity to aspire to futures ished, but so too are the agency and possible futures of many that are independent from the Western-dominated Global people living in the present. This impoverishes the scope North (Appadurai 2013). All of this indicates an inability and diversity of future visions, and weakens the individual to imagine or conceive alternative (emancipated) futures, and collective capacity to imagine and act upon alternatives, although being able to do so is an essential precondition for because “[o]ur imagination is to a large extent bound to the being able to design sustainable futures. systems we live in” (Milkoreit 2016, p 172). Thus, in the fol- In addition to present inequalities in future practices, the lowing paragraphs, we argue from the normative perspective capacity of future generations to act and decide upon politi- that it must be acknowledged that future-making practices cal issues is diminished by political actions in the present are always tied to present economic, political and societal (Adam and Groves 2007; Caney 2009; Thompson 2010). contexts. However, in those contexts is still room to resist Political decisions, for example, favouring nuclear energy or and to transform and shape established (future) practices subsidizing energy-intense industries, deeply affect future (Butler 2004). Hence, the specific contexts in which people generations. This has been possible up to now because future live and the relationships—be they harmful or empower- generations and their life circumstances have been largely ing—that exist between individuals feed into the possible “decontextualized and depersonalized” to “plunder and practices of democratic, sustainable, and pluralized futures. pollute [into the future] with impunity” (Adam and Groves Future practices can only be seen as something performed in 2007, p 13)]. Such practices are based on a commodifica- the contexts and presence of human beings who are bound tion of the future whereby the future is treated as if it were together by “inhabit[ing] the world” (Arendt 1958, p XII). a good that can be traded against the present and, at the Acknowledging these de facto, default unchosen relations is same time, remain unconnected to it. Mainstream economic the only way to extend equity beyond borders: models assume trade-offs between present and future con- [T]he political aim is to extend equality … to those sumption and production; within such models, future costs none of us ever chose (or did not recognize that we and benefits are usually valued less than present ones. This chose) and with whom we have an enduring obliga- practice of social discounting (Ramsey 1928) thus reduces tion to find a way to live. For whoever “we” are, we the incentives for longer term investments aligned to more are also those who were never chosen, who emerge on this earth without everyone’s consent, and who belong, from the start, to a wider population and a sustainable earth (Butler 2015, p 116). This refers to the big debate on intergenerational justice and sus- tainability politics, where different criteria for the harm done to future generations are discussed. We do not have the space here to outline the debate in detail. 1 3 Sustainability Science On a global level, Butler (2015) defines this relational task becomes to politicize the future, that is, to open up account as cohabitation of the earth. Although she makes future making to public contestation and wider circles of her case with respect to present, global humanity, “human- society and to shift or change the dominant ways we have ity” can also be read to include temporally distant future of dealing with it. Wright (2010) argues that, while major generations, because the theory she proposes is based on systemic disruption such as revolution is implausible in the mutual dependence of human lives. In the same way liberal capitalist societies, the potential for openings still that humans depend on one another in the present, they also exists. Such openings can lead to minor adaptions within depend on the legacy left to them by people in the past (just the current system or to major emancipatory shifts. How as future generations will depend on the legacy we leave a “real utopia” (Wright 2010) can be put into practice will them). This and other concepts of intergenerational justice depend largely on the inherent future visions. According to rest on ideas of interpersonal relations and responsibilities Wright, “real utopias” are necessary pragmatic interventions (Groves 2014; Fritsch 2018). According to Rosa (2016); that allow us to “embrace […] this tension between dreams to live a good and meaningful life, we must establish and and practice” (ibid.: 4). Our ability to conceive of ways to maintain relationships of resonance. When individuals are resist hegemonic dominance is shaped by our visions of the isolated and alienated from past, present and future persons, future; conversely, in the absence of these visions, emanci- they tend to perceive their responsibility towards future gen- patory practices cannot emerge (ibid.). Thus, political spaces erations as a loss (detraction from their own well-being) or a in which multiple future visions and practices can be made burden (Faets and Tamoudi 2017). Therefore, relationships visible and enabled are crucial for any democratic considera- to past and future generations seem crucial for strengthening tions of the future. positive pathways towards the future. Chris Groves goes a Going beyond sociotechnical futures and opening up step further, suggesting that we look at people in the future for more diverse visions is also a methodological matter. as potential co-creators of their own present. For example, acknowledging the co-production and rela- The concept of generativity defines conditions under tionality of future visions in energy transition (away from which these relations from one generation to the next can coal and nuclear powered to safer and more environmen- be established (King 2015, p 29). Being “generative” means tally friendly renewable sources) can pave the way to better caring and providing resources (including time) for a future detecting, reconstructing and understanding the plethora of from which one is excluded. This means that the current diverse future visions resulting from public and civil soci- generations must recognize their own transience—a feat ety interventions as Longhurst and Chilvers show in this not easily accomplished because in today’s modern socie- special feature. Low and Schäfer (2019) show how different ties “limits” are perceived negatively (ibid.). Continuity is predictive and anticipatory methods in climate engineering also needed for change (King 2013; Leccardi 2012). The create futures that are predominantly economic and techni- societal interpretative patterns that have emerged in the cal; they point to methods that open up diverse scenarios past create continuity and provide linking points between through deliberative stakeholder engagement. Shifting the generations. They set the framework conditions in which perspective from a purely managerial approach to time and the individual holds the potential for discontinuity (and thus future, to future making as open and experimental practices change) through his/her reinterpretation of the framework. also provides us with new insights (David and Gross 2019). Situating oneself in historical and social time is a neces- Here, we can see the great potential in education (Kaufmann sary first step for initiating change. Because modern socie- et al. 2019) because educational settings can offer spaces for ties tend to emphasize ahistorical concepts of progress, they critical thinking and reflection as well as spaces for experi- also tend to overlook these interpretive patterns built into mentation and conceiving or developing alternatives. their worlds by previous generations. Generativity stresses the importance of tangible relations between past, present and future generations; this is crucial because it overcomes The contributions abstract and detached notions of future beings for whom it is difficult—challenging, to say the least—to feel any affinity This special feature begins with an essay by Lucian Höls- for or responsibility towards. cher on the temporal notion of “future pasts” in historical If we acknowledge the relationality that is inherently and novels, everyday practices and politics (Hölscher 2019). In necessarily connected to future-making practices, then the fictional settings, future archaeologists construct a past (the author’s present) and, in so doing, open up a plethora of pos- sible presents and futures. Hölscher claims that viewing the present from one specific, anticipated future standpoint is a Arendt claims that human beings cannot choose to deny the hetero- common, everyday modern practice, which unburdens the geneity of human life on Earth and thus are bound together by this present by freeing it of ambiguities. Future pasts provide us unchosen mutual obligation to grant one another freedom. 1 3 Sustainability Science with a powerful instrument to interpret and validate present the empirical studies that show that people today feel gen- politics (futures for the present). erally incapable of shaping society or their own long-term Two articles in this volume deal with the political, theo- future (Holfelder 2019). Holfelder criticizes the notion of retical and ethical connotations of future-making practices. education understood solely as training (measured on con- Rosine Kelz raises the question of future orientation in crete outcomes) and argues for a notion of education as “sub- political theories (Kelz 2019). She analyses the work of jectification” (Biesta 2016) which holds important possibili- Arendt, Cavell and Derrida, and interprets them in terms of ties for opening futures. their potential for open futures. Instead of arguing the neces- Two contributions in the area of science policy concep- sity of some new political theory which would incorporate tualize future-making practices in terms of their underly- long-term perspectives to address current ecological threats ing epistemologies. Sean Low and Stefan Schäfer describe (e.g. climate change), she contends that future orientation is different kinds of “future making” in climate engineering already inherent in the theory of democracy. approaches (Low and Schäfer 2019). The authors present Christopher Groves juxtaposes the modern concept of the an analysis of different approaches in climate engineering, future as an extension of the present self, (futures for the based on methodological objectives, epistemologies and present as Hölscher described it) and the reflexive counter- user communities. Some of these methods are characterized concept where future is something “wholly other” than the as deductive, whereby the future is derived from (present) present and burdened with unintended consequences of probabilities; others are described as deliberative, whereby the present (presents for the future) (Groves 2019). Groves a future is conceived, which includes space for projection. argues that neither is convincing as moral political tenet. In Alejandro Esguerra argues that objects matter in the contrast, Groves suggests to conceptualize future through construction of futures (Esguerra 2019). Instruments, data- theories of attachments where present and future people are bases and power point presentations perform a political task, connected in solidarity through the “holding environment” whenever they provide consensual knowledge about the in which they both exist. future that enables policymakers to design rules in the pre- Educational approaches to sustainable futures are offered sent. Future objects are also involved in creating futures. For three contributions to this special feature. Sarah Amsler example, Foresight Conferences deal with strategic planning identifies a “blind spot” in analyses of social and ecological for the future with the aim to pursue novel visions of sustain- justice based on currently dominant ontological principles able futures in the Anthropocene (Hajer and Pelzer 2018). In (Amsler 2019). Today’s popular ontology relies on sepa- considering differences between various objects, Alejandro ration or separateness (individualism carried to its logical Esguerra elaborates on the sociomaterial politics of antici- extreme), rationality and certainty which, taken together, pation, especially with regard to science policy interaction. promote and sustain unsustainability. Education based on Two contributions engage with questions of how futures this paradigm will close down future possibilities because for the present and presents for the future are inevitably learners will not be able to conceive and develop real alter- interconnected in the area of energy policy using the con- natives. Instead education needs to leave its safe haven crete example of energy transition practices. Noel Longhurst (embedded in the present ontological framework) and be and Jason Chilvers map different energy transition visions reconceived as an experimental space for developing radical and show how these visions emerge from multiple contexts possibilities based on the assumption of a radical and open beyond mere technical ideas and top-down dictates (Long- understanding of future. hurst and Chilvers 2019). The authors argue that such transi- The members of “Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie” (“Labo- tion visions, even if they appear purely technical, are always ratory for New Economic Ideas”) Nadine Kaufmann, Chris- normative in promoting specific political and social orders. toph Sanders and Julian Wortmann share the view that Martin David and Matthias Groß investigate processes of educational approaches which fail to address the causes of abandoning technologies (David and Gross 2019). They call unsustainability will invariably support the unsustainable these “exnovations”—the “flipside” or reverse of innova- status quo (Kaufmann et al. 2019). The authors argue from tions and real-world experiments. Analysing different cases a degrowth perspective and consider today’s popular mental- from the energy sector, David and Groß develop hypotheses ity oriented towards competition and individualism (to the of what might be a favourable circumstance for exnovation, exclusion of collective action and social solidarity) as being for example, an event which is publicly perceived as cata- at the root of the crisis. They present their own educational strophic, like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The authors work in which they address problematic non-sustainable point to a blind spot in the sustainability literature, which infrastructures. results from the overemphasis placed on innovation. Anne-Katrin Holfelder observes the gap between the In the final section of our special feature, two contribu- high-expectation society places on its educational institu- tions suggest categorizations of how future making is done tions to educate people for creating a sustainable future and in sustainability politics. 1 3 Sustainability Science Esguerra A (2019) Future Objects: Tracing the Socio-Material Politics Basil Bornemann and Holger Strassheim distinguish of Anticipation. Sustain Sci different modes of governing time in sustainability poli- Faets S, Tamoudi N (2017) Neue Perspektiven auf die normativen tics and propose an analytical scheme of time governance Grundlagen der Debatte um intergenerationelle Gerechtigkeit. (Bornemann and Strassheim 2019). They reconstruct how www .hfph.de/forsc hung/dr itt mitte lpr oj ekte/zuk ue nf tig e-g ener ation en/publi k atio nen/neue-persp ektiv en-auf-die-nor ma tiven time becomes an important factor in sustainability practices: -g r und lagen -der-debat te-um-inter gener ation elle-ger ec htigk eit. here the role of time can be distinguished, for example, with pdf/view. Accessed 28 June 2018 regard to planning instruments and transition implementa- Fritsch M (2018) Taking turns with the Earth: phenomenology, tion instruments; or time sequences can be looked at as deconstruction, and intergenerational justice. Stanford Univer- sity Press, Stanford determining factors for governance. These different temporal Granjou C, Walker, Salazar J (2017) Guest Editorial to the special practices create diverse timescapes of sustainability. issue ‘Politics of Anticipation: on knowing and governing envi- Frank Adloff and Sighard Neckel analyse the sustain- ronmental futures’. 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Published: May 19, 2019

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