"Anthropologies of forecasting as anthropologies of the future"
2011 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
November 16-20, 2011
Montreal, Canada
DUE DATE: Monday, February 28, 2011
Panel Description:
"Anthropologies of forecasting as anthropologies of the future"
Anthropologists have often described how people make forecasts of all sorts,
as part of their cultural practices, social organizations, and economic
systems. Being able to forecast outcomes for harvests, rainy seasons, wars,
elections, marriages, illnesses, as well as good or bad luck in general,
seems to be an integral part of how societies imagine and organize
themselves. In times of climate change, the activity of forecasting has
gained special attention in Western countries. Current efforts to tackle
climate change involve a series of different forecasts, from climate states
and weather events to demographic trends, economic scenarios, and conflicts.
At the same time, forecasting activities and methods are far from widely
accepted by populations around the globe. Meteorology, the science which
informs us about the changing state of the atmosphere, for instance, has
historically faced criticism, discredit, and ridicule, in Western and
non-Western settings. This session focuses on how anthropologists contribute
to the debate about the future - of natural environments and of societies -
through a discussion that goes beyond the issue of how human societies
conceptualize Nature and Culture, and towards how humans conceptualize the
future and the ability to forecast it in ways that shape activities and
attitudes in the present.
Please submit the following information to Karen Pennesi (pennesi@uwo.ca)
and Renzo Taddei (renzo.taddei@eco.ufrj.br) by Monday, February 28, 2011 for
consideration:
* Name
* Institutional affiliation
* Paper title
* 250-word abstract
* Keywords
* Contact information
Panel Organizers:
Karen Pennesi, University of Western Ontario (pennesi@uwo.ca)
Renzo Taddei, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
(renzo.taddei@eco.ufrj.br)
