5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The power of imagined future is evident in Marx’s work. His imagination has provided strong motives and ideological foundations on which to start socialist and communist movements in different parts of the world. This mechanism can easily be found in today’s movement horizon, as we hear voices chanting “another world is possible” in the movement campaigns. Imagined future provides motivational foundations, instigates movement participants, and fuels movement action.

Despite the importance of imagined future in the creation of social movements, we have failed to pay due attention to its power in social movements. To be sure, intellectual elements and ideas exist in our collective efforts to study social movements, such as Brown’s (2016) “prospectus”, Sukert’s (2022) “imagined future”, not to mention Schutz’s (1967) powerful conceptualization of “projecting” to explain action. However, as Mische (2009) points out, the analysis of projected future has largely been neglected. We need to vitalize our analytical discussions on the power of projected future in the study of social movements.

This session aims to discuss the processes and mechanisms of the production of projected future, its consumption, and its influence on movement actions.