Phenomenology of the Future: The Politics of Time, Institutions, and Collective Action

“Structural phenomenology” offers a novel approach to political sociology in that it is centered in understanding the relationships between social action and interaction, social temporalities, and institutional and lifeworldly structures. In particular, the focus on alternative temporalities of action offers a theoretical basis for analyzing alternative ways that individuals, groups, and movements construct futures, in part on the basis of both legacies, memories, and idealizations of the past. Additionally, the phenomenological focus on institutions in relation to actions offers a basis for opening up sociological considerations of alternative futures. In order to give empirical flesh to the theoretical bones of structural phenomenology as social theory, I will especially reference alternative constructions of the future in relation to climate change. These empirical considerations offer a basis for demonstrating how ideology and actions are bonded in alternative constructions of the future.