Past remarkable: Using life stories to trace alternative futures

Palmer, J

Past remarkable: Using life stories to trace alternative futures

Palmer, J

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Futures, 2014, 64 pp. 29 - 37
Issue Date:: 2014-12-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Palmer, J https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4131-4482	en_US
dc.date.available	2020-05-25T19:07:07Z
dc.date.issued	2014-12-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Futures, 2014, 64 pp. 29 - 37	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0016-3287	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/30589
dc.description.abstract	© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. The paper argues that life stories and histories offer different perspectives on the past, with implications for studying the future. A life is proposed as a form of "social site" (Marston, S.A., Jones III, J.P., & Woodward, K. (2005). Human geography without scale, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 30, 416-432.) where the future is met and negotiated. Unlike the broad sweep of historical narrative, a focus on the site of a life can reveal cumulative losses, futures denied and paths not taken. Life stories challenge historical narrative with alternative futures that 'might-have-been'; they might therefore usefully be added as a more experimental type to Inayatullah's taxonomy of historical "traces" (Inayatullah, S. (2012). Humanity 3000: A comparative analysis of methodological approaches to forecasting the long-term, Foresight, 14 (5), 401-417).A case study based on a life story from Aceh is used to demonstrate ways in which alternative futures can emerge from life stories and then be acted upon. The paper concludes that the experimental power of life stories as historical traces lies not only in the stories themselves but in the unique event of storytelling and its potentially transformative impact on the teller and listener, and hence the future.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Futures	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.futures.2014.10.002	en_US
dc.subject.classification	General Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences	en_US
dc.title	Past remarkable: Using life stories to trace alternative futures	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	64	en_US
utslib.for	MD Multidisciplinary	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/DVC (Research)
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/DVC (Research)/Institute For Sustainable Futures
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	64	en_US

Abstract:

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. The paper argues that life stories and histories offer different perspectives on the past, with implications for studying the future. A life is proposed as a form of "social site" (Marston, S.A., Jones III, J.P., & Woodward, K. (2005). Human geography without scale, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 30, 416-432.) where the future is met and negotiated. Unlike the broad sweep of historical narrative, a focus on the site of a life can reveal cumulative losses, futures denied and paths not taken. Life stories challenge historical narrative with alternative futures that 'might-have-been'; they might therefore usefully be added as a more experimental type to Inayatullah's taxonomy of historical "traces" (Inayatullah, S. (2012). Humanity 3000: A comparative analysis of methodological approaches to forecasting the long-term, Foresight, 14 (5), 401-417).A case study based on a life story from Aceh is used to demonstrate ways in which alternative futures can emerge from life stories and then be acted upon. The paper concludes that the experimental power of life stories as historical traces lies not only in the stories themselves but in the unique event of storytelling and its potentially transformative impact on the teller and listener, and hence the future.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/30589