Anthropology about the Future: Limits and Potentials

The need for more—and more reliable—knowledge about the future is a pressing social problem. Knowledge about the sociocultural future, both as object and as subject, in general and in specific cases, is a problem for anthropology. Predictive methods and the kinds of images they project are assessed....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Human organization 1991-10, Vol.50 (3), p.297-311
Main Author:	RINER, REED D.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Anthropology Applied anthropology Capitalism Cultural anthropology Cultural studies Ethnography Future Futures (of Society) Futurism Modeling Prediction Predictive modeling Social Anthropology Social evolution Social research Sociocultural Factors
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	The need for more—and more reliable—knowledge about the future is a pressing social problem. Knowledge about the sociocultural future, both as object and as subject, in general and in specific cases, is a problem for anthropology. Predictive methods and the kinds of images they project are assessed. The alternative, analysis of ethnographically elicited images of the future and the implicated model of a "cybersentient" actor, is also assessed. Limits to what we can and can't know, with implications for what we can and can't do, about the future are identified.
ISSN:	0018-7259 1938-3525