Post-crises (new) normality. Across social practices and speculative fictions

Abstract

The term of “normality” – we use in the title – stems from a discourse that (re)emerged at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, governing people’s imaginaries and beliefs that “back to normal life” or “better normal” will happen. Escalation of a war in Ukraine and concatenated environmental, energy and economic crises have dissuaded us from these views, showing rather that uncertainty will become the new reality in which we will live. In the paper we combine approaches from social sciences (the concept of social practice) and humanities (speculative fiction as a practice) to show how normative understanding of “normality” prevents discursive progressing beyond the capitalist logic of “normal” and how it immobilises transformation of everyday social practices into the practices that inscribe uncertainty as a normal. As we argue, to exceed foregoing imaginations of “normality” we should employ speculative fictions as realms that help people experiment and exercise different scenarios of the futures. Since the authors represent four disciplines and work in a society where disciplinary boundaries are well established, this paper reflects our hand-on experience with building a transdisciplinary approach.