Panel discussion: “The Other Side of Futures: Engaging Endings and their Chronopolitics”

ABSTRACT:

We live in times of multiple declared endings. These range from endings at a planetary scale with climate collapse, to endings of global governance and security regimes, to more mundane endings of technologies, societal infrastructures, and knowledge practices attached to them. Endings are formations that declare a boundary between what/who is considered to be belonging to a future, and what/who does not. They involve normative considerations of what is effective or timely, vs what can be deferred, ignored, neglected, or unaddressed. Endings therefore express power relations, and lived experiences of change that involve care, affect, labor, and contestation. In this interdisciplinary panel we explore the cultural production and experiences of endings as multifaceted phenomena that are always part of making futures. Panelists share examples and perspectives from their ongoing research on endings to consider how endings configure spaces for political reimagining, power relations, and difference in technological, scientific or organisational lifeworlds. It also aims to open a dialog among participants regarding the chrononormativity of scholarship on futures in terms of how we engage or bracket endings from view, and the political implications of these acts.