Fight, or flee, the future: Affect in contrasting responses against future collective death

Abstract

Sociologies of the future offer insights into how the future is apprehended by social actors and motivates their actions. Contemporary narratives of crises in the Anthropocene portray an increasingly likely future: one of future collective death. This article conceptualises collective death as a future that possesses both imaginary and material dimensions. I argue that future collective death generates various affective responses that prompt social coalitions to resist its realisation, and I exemplify it with two cases: Extinction Rebellion and Space Colonisation. I explore how futurelessness and grief motivate Extinction Rebellion's direct non-violent actions to fight against future collective death, while death anxiety and terminality drive Space Colonisation's attempts to flee from it. In doing so, I illustrate the role of imagination, affect and material means in configuring future-oriented socio-political action.