Education, Discursive Formations,
and Media
Futures are socio-material constructs that guide our current practices; and they range from individual projections to visions of communities and companies, and to national and transnational imaginaries. As “cultural facts,” their competing character reflects power dynamics in and across societies. At the Universities of Oldenburg and Bremen, research into the emergence and performativity of competing futures is developed with an interdisciplinary approach.
Disciplines
Educational Science
Cultural Studies
History
Linguistics
Literary Studies
Media and Communication Studies
Philosophy
Social Anthropology
Sociology
Study of religion
The analysis is based on three interconnected fields: education, discursive formation, and media. Education is a normatively contested field in which visions of the future are negotiated and institutionalized. Our intersectional and inclusive approach challenges existing inequalities and hegemonic knowledge systems in the shaping of educational futures. We examine discursive formations as arenas in which visions of the future are debated controversially and, increasingly, through the rhetoric of polarization. Media are both means of shaping competing futures and of their articulation, in that media technologies – such as communicative AI – are themselves seen as embodiments of the future.
By systematically relating these fields to one another, the mechanisms underlying the construction of possible futures becomes apparent, revealing how they guide practices in the here and now. For example, predictions of an educational crisis prompt the revision of curricula; ignorance of certain ideas about the future prevents them from even becoming the subject of public debate; or techno-optimistic visions of the future steer the allocation of resources in certain directions. Pooling expertise from the humanities and social sciences of Bremen and Oldenburg in this field, we investigate not only how futures emerge, how they compete for attention and credibility, and how some are brought to the fore, while other futures remained invisible. In so doing, we also explore how these futures shape processes of societal transformation.
Through the newly established “Competing Futures Hub,” we are connecting research in media and communication studies and contradiction studies at the University of Bremen with the genealogically oriented cultural and social sciences research at the University of Oldenburg, and integrate this with the migration-related educational research for which both universities are renowned. For humanities and social sciences research on competing futures, this hub creates the ideal conditions for large-scale collaborative projects.
Key Research Initiatives
Spokespersons of the Focal Research Area
In seven years, the Competing Futures Hub of the Northwest Alliance will be a nationally and internationally recognized center for research on practices of futuring in the humanities and social sciences.
Prof. Dr. Martin Butler, University of Oldenburg
We need to investigate how competing futures shape the emergence of new media and technologies – because those who define the future are already shaping the present.
Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp, University of Bremen
