Biographies and the Sociology of the Future: A Proposal

This paper reflects on the various ways in which the contingency of the future is addressed in modern societies and how these ways of dealing with the future are incorporated in relatively coherent biographical narratives. Drawing partly on the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, we explore how people's individual and collective projects for the future (and their knowledge of the uncertainty of the future) help shape their actions in the present and how these projects are inevitably tied in with institutional constraints and opportunities.