Education for people-yet-to-come: Imaginary projects in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This paper analyzes the future of education, especially the future changes in education and the people that will occupy the field. What kind of people are we educating for the future? To answer this question, I will analyze the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of people-yet-to-come by taking into account the new perception and explanation of time and space as well as the context of the Anthropocene. In the empirical part, interviews with experts from non-educational fields are used to discuss time and space in education. Statements about the new features of people in the future reveal the picture of the future of education in the eyes of the experts and its correspondence to theoretical considerations and prognoses.

Keywords:

• People-yet-to-come; anthropocene; imagination; future

Introduction

Rapid economic change, with its profound impact on the planet and its ecosystem, as well as the unstoppable warming of the climate are fueling discourse and speculation about humanity’s unpredictable future. This discourse poses new questions, above all what kind of life we want to see on the planet, and what kind of people we expect to be living on it.

The far-sighted Deleuzo-Guattarian inventions geared to humanity are especially interesting and worth considering, and even to take as grounds for investigations on the future and the future of education as well. The intrigue of Deleuze and Guattari’s theory is the concept of people-yet-to-come (1980/2013),¹ which gives a kind of key for rethinking the future. Who are the people-yet-to-come? Are they the people of the future, or of the present? Do they live a sedentary life, or are they nomads, perpetually in migration? Do they have an identity of their own?

These questions, as well as the concept itself, were analyzed by philosophers who attempted to understand Deleuze and Guattari’s main ideas, criticize their work, or suggest individual interpretations, such as relating the concept of people-yet-to-come to a ‘democratic plane of transversality’ and a multitude of narrations (Mengue, 2012) or using it to explain new ways of ‘living with the earth’ in the Anthropocene (Saldanha & Stark, 2016, p. 437). Other explanations were developed to ‘change the world’ toward new aims, new social syntheses, and a new power (Buchanan, 2014, p. 13) or to understand the state of ‘becoming-revolutionary’, which leads to a collective becoming based on differences (Bogue, 2011). All interpretations of the people-yet-to-come tend to project our future, which raises ample discussions concerning the prospective directions of human life.

In this discourse, the educational perspective is especially relevant; however, it was analyzed only in some aspects (Carlin & Wallin, 2014; Cole, 2014; Hroch, 2014; Wallin, 2020, etc.). The interpreters of Deleuze and Guattari in education (Cole, 2014; Hroch, 2014), who are interested in the practical field, claim that people-yet-to-come are living among us now, and it is misleading to think that they are only people of the future. This responds to Claire Colebrook’s (2015, p. 18) suggestion that ‘we think seriously about Deleuze and Guattari’s claim for a new people and a new earth as a genuinely futural endeavor. It is not easy being Deleuzo-Guattarian precisely’, as their concepts are too abstract for the concrete ways of life in the present, for people who, in Colebrook’s words, are sometimes being occupied or themselves occupy. These people are perhaps looking forward to a future that promises them a safe native domain instead of living in a deterritorialized and nomadic way, as proposed by French philosophers for the people-yet-to-come.² Nevertheless, even though Colebrook criticizes these abstract concepts, she uses them to produce innovative ideas. Similarly, Philippe Mengue (2012) suggests moving from the absolutely abstract Deleuzian people and plane of immanence toward an empirical view of people with their own stories, opinions, and narratives, which is particularly relevant for those who conduct empirical research in the social sciences, especially education.

The term of the Anthropocene,³ which is entering the social, academic, and educational science discourse, gives more room for understanding the trajectory of humanity, the perception of time and space, new features of the present society, and especially predictions on education in the future. Most scholars agree that Earth’s planetary changes are anthropogenic, i.e. dominated by human activities, such as excessive agriculture, industrialization, deforestation, nuclear contamination, and the pollution of oceans and skies. This new epoch prompts us to rethink the agency of human beings, as we have become a species that physically asserts its dominance by collectively occupying new territories and impacting ecological processes.

During the last decades, many publications appeared that interpret education, human and child agency, and the school in the Anthropocene, considering it a new epoch for a new people (Hird & Yusoff, 2020; jagodzinski,⁴ 2018; Kouppanou, 2020; Malone, 2018; Wallin, 2020, etc.). These issues still remain relevant in scholarly literature. The recently published book Education, The Anthropocene and Deleuze/Guattari (Cole, 2022) inspires us to rethink the junction between the Anthropocene and the Deleuzian people-yet-to-come in relation to the ecological crises of our time, and especially regarding a new understanding of time and space, because in Cole’s words, the Anthropocene is seen in the ‘Deleuze/Guattari term as the future rupturing the present’ (Cole, 2022, annotation on back cover).

Thus, this paper asks: How does this new view concerning a future people or people for the future, mostly based on Deleuze and Guattari’s and posthuman philosophy, could contribute by providing a definition for our educational future and anticipating the people we will educate for the future? To answer these questions, I will (1) present a definition of the concept of people-yet-to-come in the future educational perspective in relation to space and time as most important factors to discuss humanity in transition, (2) discuss this concept in the context of the Anthropocene, and (3) present interviews with specialists from different fields on the issue. Their released imagination will aid us in finding the main prognosis for the future in schools, focusing on time, space, and the people-yet-to-come as the foundation of a school community. Empirical research—different narratives concerning the future and school—gives added value to the Deleuzo-Guattarian abstractions and corresponds to Colebrook’s statement that ‘we need history, facts, distinctions’ and the voices of real people rather than the mere invention of abstract concepts (2015, p. 18).

Hopefully, this empirical research concerning individuals in one particular country might represent not only the narrative in a particular country. Future global discourse and global communication allow us to presuppose that it could be heard as relevant in other countries, cultures, and continents, or it can be treated as one case of many multiplied narratives.

People-yet-to-come: Between times and spaces

Many philosophers have attempted to (re)consider our perception of time and space, which in itself is very important to understanding the concepts of the future, future people, and change in schooling. From considering manipulation by power, they move toward a new perception of time as an inner duration (Bergson, 1852/2010) and as diachronic time (de Certeau, 1980/1984), or time in terms of plasticity for the sake of creativity (Hogstad & Malabou, 2021); likewise, philosophers proceed from the limitation of space by power toward a non-space, transitional space, a space of others, etc (Augé, 1992/1995; Buchanan, 2005). In this way, one may escape the controlling and deadlocked circumstances which paralyze the living and creative process.

On the one hand, Deleuze and Guattari borrow some ideas from their predecessors, but also create their own position, which is followed by the latest thinkers. In their critique of capitalism, they say that ‘[w]e lack creation. We lack resistance to the present. The creation of concepts in itself calls for a future form, for a new earth and people that do not yet exist’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1991/1994, p. 108). First of all, a philosopher outlines the role of concepts for a transformation of thinking and also describes the future people as those who still do not exist, though later on we find in the texts that these people are defined as being in-becoming. They are ‘becoming-people.’

This becoming⁵ allows us to perceive the dynamics of time and, following Deleuze’s predecessor Bergson (1852/2010), the inner duration of time, the coexistence of different ‘durations,’ as well as the dynamic of life, creation, the changeable state of things, people etc. Moreover, ‘becoming is not a self-unfolding but always in a relation with what is not one’s own’ (Colebrook, 2015, p. 14), especially considering the minorities or those who are ‘less human’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/2013). It is a becoming-other. Becoming actualizes potentiality, and brings to life creation, novelty, resistance, and escape. Thus, ‘Deleuze and Guattari’s plea for a people-yet-to-come does not presume that the pedagogical or political process of transformation at work is one through which pre-existing (though not—yet-existing) ‘people’ will come to adopt a pre-existing ‘idea’ over time. Rather, they understand the people present in the present as already the ‘people-yet-to-come,’’ Petra Hroch argues (2014, p. 50). Hroch, as well as Cole (2014), sees these people as ‘already-existing’ and as nomads, perpetually in movement, both in terms of the physical and the mental (Braidotti, 2013).

While Colebrook, following Deleuze and Guattari and discussing time in the Anthropocene, focuses on the possibility to abandon the ‘before’ and ‘after’ and analyzes the Deleuzo-Guattarian prioritization of philosophical time as a ‘grandiose time of coexistence’ that does not exclude both time dimensions (Colebrook, 2016, p. 450), Cole turns to an ‘expanded time dimension as now’ (2022, p. 19). In Cole’s words, time in the Anthropocene is an atomic time. ‘Atomic time’ stands to define the time after 1945, after the dropping of the atomic bomb, and on the other hand it is a historical continuation of atomic theory and its developments for ‘separating and individualizing us as atoms’ (ibid, p. 86). It is a ‘dark time’ of climate change and increasing damage to Earth’s ecosystems, which have become threatened by the fragmentation and destructive activities of humanity. Using these Deleuzian concepts, which Cole wants to bring to the analysis of the Anthropocene, he outlines another understanding of time—a naturally flowing time that would be ‘beyond human measurement, linearity, and imposition on the complex unfolding in and of time (as a thing apart) […]’ (ibid, p. 94). Such an understanding of time could help change the direction taken by humanity to escape such a predicament and the adverse consequences of its own actions.

However, Cole’s suggestion for pedagogy concerning space-time is borrowed from Deleuze and Guattari; his emphasis on the Anthropocene and the future of the Planet brings a different vision than that of the French philosophers. The approach to Deleuzo-Guattarian space-time and its dynamism is usually taken from the concept of (re-, de-)territorialization, which is as spatial as it is temporal. Dynamism is realized through deterritorialization, an openness to unpredictable forces of chaos, and later on—efforts to harness the chaos through reterritorialization in the assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1991/1994). Cole, however, appears not content with a Deleuzo-Guattarian description of a non-purposeful composition of elements and variable thinking for a ‘production of the new.’ He radicalizes the mode of future thinking, perception of space-time, and behavior in the collective sense in favor of saving the Planet and its people. This idea of collectivity in the Anthropocene is outlined not only by Cole, but by many philosophers of education, such as Snaza (2018), jagodzinski (2018), Malone (2018); Cole elaborated it in a special way—in relation to the Anthropocenian dimension of time.

Another direction for developing the concept of time in future education may be found in Malabou’s concept of plasticity, even though the scholar associates less with Deleuzian philosophy and maintains a distance from its ideas. In an interview with Kjetil Horn Hogstad about plasticity and education (Hogstad & Malabou, 2021), she says: ‘Life is immanently what it is: Always different from itself while never separating itself from itself. Such is the meaning of plasticity.’ Talking about the perspective of time, she adds that ‘plasticity affirms that all that happens is not entirely unexpected and surprising’; sometimes, plasticity requires a long historical development. The concept of plasticity allows for a transformation of our thinking, behavior and education; in some cases the transformation is very anarchic, in others—masked, especially in education. Hogstad admirably reformulates Malabou’s position concerning time, stating that ‘‘[p]lastic time’ is a reconfiguration of the future, the to-come, positioning it as a continually renewing and (partially) created feature of the world’ (Hogstad, 2022, p. 234).

Like the perception of time, the transformation of place perception and the movement of people also acquire new specificity. In Buchanan and Lambert’s view (Buchanan, 2005), the young generation is not connected to a particular place as it was in the past. They are mostly in a transitory position, or in a ‘non-place’ and ‘non-space,’ following the ideas of Augé (1992/1995). Moreover, the virtual space, which is as real as it is physical, occupies our everyday reality. Such are the peculiarities of the present globalized world and speed of life. The mixture of virtual and actual space, a transitional state of affairs, and a flow of forces establish connectivity between a group of elements and at the same time can change connectivity by abandoning or integrating other elements, thus changing its space assemblage. In other words, it marks a permanent change of territorial assemblages, a search for the resonance of elements, and by consequence events, which can have a radical effect on the local or global processes and circumstances of production. ‘Deleuze turns space into a moving concept’ (Dewsbury & Thrift, 2005, p. 89), maintaining that it is real, albeit still in the process of actualization before becoming realized in an event. Moreover, ‘Deleuzian space is not above and beyond nor is it inside or outside, but rather self-referential in its time as an event’ (ibid, p. 105). That is evident from Deleuze’s book Cinema 2. The Time-Image (1985/1989), where he describes the time-image as remarkably different from the movement-image in artistic works. And in Deleuze’s Negotiations 1972–1990 (1990/1995), the time-image refers to an irrationality of element linkage in a composition and a ‘crystalline system’ (p. 67), in which an artistic or everyday event can happen. An event in particular is this instance of actualized space-time. The understanding of new spatial and time features could provide a proper vector for changing education; this is discussed already, but unfortunately practiced rarely, except for art education (jagodzinski, 2010; Wallin, 2010). The artistic approach is inevitably effective in inventing and creating as a way to experiment without limits. As such, it ‘is able to restore the infinite,’ in contrast to experiments in scientific education, which result in ‘finite coordinates’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, pp. 202–203).

The Anthropocene: Who lives in it and how?

While discussing the concept of people-yet-to-come and living in the Anthropocene, it is impossible to distance ourselves from the broader context of the crises which humanity faces, and which became central to the Anthropocene discourse. Climate warming and ecological issues are at the forefront of the discourse, but it also stresses the need to rethink human and especially children’s agency and issues related to their state of life: communication, use of technology, dominant knowledge and values, perception of time and space, teaching/learning styles, etc. All of these issues are interconnected, and neither can be solved without the ‘new people’ of nowadays and projections for the future people.

Cole sees them as people-yet-to-come who reinvent themselves through experimentation and imagination, in that sense becoming a new kind of people (2022, p. 147–148). In his view, these people can create a Green Utopia, based on imagining new paths of living and educating. Exactly these people should find or already have found new paths that are not in sync with green capitalism and the prevailing political strategies; they behave using drives that created the Anthropocene, though in the opposing direction.⁶ In addition to the transformative forces of their selves, which are mentioned by Cole, they can be liberated through a ‘bewildering education,’ described by Snaza (2018) as an absolutely opposite way of learning in comparison to the current officially recognized methods of progress, results, and success.

People-yet-to-come are the people of everywhere. The space of the Anthropocene becomes smooth both in the cataclysmic sense and in the sense of the variety of people, unavoidably involved in the participation and activity on this scene, because in the Anthropocene ‘there is nowhere to hide’ (ibid, p. 152), including the groups which were marginalized for many years, like indigenous peoples, shamans, sorcerers etc., who are usually described as more-than-human and now attract more and more attention from philosophers and educationalists alike (Abram, 1997; Malone, 2018; Snaza, 2018). They have a unique ability to communicate with nature and in this way, to balance or minimize the increased influence of technology. On the other side, portraits of cyborgs (human-machines) (Haraway, 1991) still remain at the centre of expectations for humanity’s future. Therefore, education has to recreate conditions for learning, for ensuring the agency of all groups and all modes of existence, as well as for collectively rethinking the situation of a global world (pollution, climate warming, migration, the predominant influence of technology over nature, etc.), eventually turning to thinking and living in a new way. This way would be based on connectivity with others—humans, animals, plants, and other beings of nature, material and non-material entities, and even technology—but by attempting to make life with technology less toxic and more sustainable.

The ideas on the future people are reconsidered not only in terms of the more-than-human, related to nature or technology and as extensions of human ability, but also inspire to draw other portraits: some are based on fantasy and imagination—in the dystopian or merely creational-artistic and metaphorical perspective—and yet others are based on the absolutely different (and very practical) way of movements of youth activists, like those of Fridays for Future (a climate movement inspired by Greta Thunberg).

Some scholars rethinking future education in relation to the environment see these new kind of people as some kind of uncanny, somewhat monstrous beasts with no clear location and identification (Lewis & Kahn, 2010). Such is the privilege of exopedagogy. ‘Exopedagogy exists in an unhomely home—an uncanny, imaginary location that is neither inside nor outside, self nor other’ (2010, p. 13). Outlining unsafety and stressing the exceptional in favor of the traditional, normal, or easily recognizable, Tyson E. Lewis and Richard Kahn draw an imaginary project, a vision of living in a different world filled with exceptional beings. It sounds a little scary, quite different from the much more ‘friendly’ or at least neutral Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of the people-yet-to-come, although Lewis and Kahn’s intention is not to paint some apocalyptical picture but, on the contrary, to emphasize the openness of our mind to the different. Similarly, Cole (2018, p. 202), who relates future to the concept of people-yet-to-come, argues that the monstrous ‘is an image or simulacrum connected to the eternal return, and as such it is a figuration of fatalism and an ultimate challenge for us to reimagine, reconceive, feel and live differently now.’

A manifestation of the future people is also evident in the movement of young climate activists. They use the drive of affectation to increase their power and make their voices heard. They fight for realistic scenarios, without imagining any monstrosity but rather thinking of the planet’s safety. These young people are active in creation and initiatives and tend to take responsibility for their actions, though their ability to do that is doubted (Kouppanou, 2020). They are still school children who have their own obligations and responsibilities, which they refuse, and on the other hand—they are ready for a much more serious set of responsibilities. Such a position is childish yet mature at the same time. Can we say that these activists are the people-yet-to-come? Perhaps. Activists still believe in the possibility of changing the global as well as separate state policies toward a enacting better efforts for saving planet Earth and humans, while the Deleuzo-Guattarian people-yet-to-come mostly believe in micropolitics (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/2013), which has no advanced claim to a finalized vision of ‘after’ at the macro level. At the very least, the Deleuzo-Guattarian people-yet-to-come have no expectations that the ‘after’ can be planned in advance. Expectations for political change could appear using an ethico-aesthetic paradigm (Guattari, 1992/1995) and by activating unexpectedly formatted transversal linkages of actions. In this way, micropolitically resistant actions, through a desire shaping new assemblages, can become a tool for change in macropolitics as well (Bell, 2003).

Following Bogue’s (2011) words, ‘[i]t must also be granted that Deleuze and Guattari’s call for the creation of a ‘new earth’ and a ‘new people’ has a millennial aura about it, but such newness need not be ideal, simply better than what we have at present’ (p. 72). On the other hand, Bogue admires science fiction, which ‘promotes the thought of a people to come as something that actually might take any number of definite forms, and perhaps may assist us in our attempts to imagine, invent and enact alternative modes of existence, new possibilities of life’ (p. 94). Different interpretations of the Deleuzian or Deleuzo-Guattarian abstraction of people-yet-to-come exist, as do attempts to find examples of it in art, fantasy, and everyday life. Nevertheless, the concept still remains open for enriching our imagination about the future of humanity and its education, creating different assemblages of future life, and thus offering ‘alternative modes of existence.’

Releasing the imagination of present-day people: Concerning people-yet-to-come

In Negotiations, Deleuze rethinks the concept of the imaginary, doubting the value of the concept, especially for marking distinctions between the real and unreal. He says: ‘The imaginary isn’t the unreal; it’s the indiscernibility of real and unreal’ (Deleuze, 1990/1995, p. 66). This Deleuzian doubt regarding the importance of the imaginary is interpreted by Daniel Smith in the following way: the concepts suggested by Deleuze, such as (re-, de-)territorialization, becoming, affects, and the flow ‘belong to the domain of real and not the imaginary’ (Smith, 2012, p. 356). Nevertheless, attention to the imaginary appears in Deleuzian texts, and ‘it seems appear primarily under the form of productive imaginations (production of spatio-temporal dynamisms), rather than that of the reproductive imagination (production of images), though the two roles of the imagination are obviously related’ (Smith, 2012, p. 358). Without any pretense to directly follow this very particular Deleuzian description of the imaginary, the idea of the second part of this paper—to investigate the social imaginary in practice—stems from both Deleuze’s philosophy and a desire of the paper’s author, created by the machining affect of present-day futuristic projections.

Having a more or less clear map representing the difference of opinion in the academic discourse, I may consider what people from different fields, having practical and/or theoretical competencies, think about the transformation of education in the Anthropocene and the future of education. Thus, I am letting the voice of the people be heard, as suggested by the philosopher of education Malone (2018). The interviews in my country (Lithuania) and their analysis are an attempt at a Delphi method of creating schooling scenarios for 2050.⁷ The project is partly imaginary and partly practical or even pragmatic: to draw a picture of the future, to identify alternatives, to know what we can expect in the future, and what we can change or improve through education as an attempt to avoid any undesirable consequences. The interviewees’ statements can act as an enriched picture of the future, or a collection of scenarios for the future. Meanwhile, the Deleuzian or Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts will help us navigate this very broad field of Future Studies as well as studies of the Anthropocene.

The interviewees consist of a sociologist (S), sociolinguist (SL), IT specialist (IT), biologist (B), philosopher (Ph), and astrophysicist-paleontologist (A). All are related to the educational field by any special aspect (research interest, non-formal education, etc.), though not directly, while some of them work at educational institutions; all are Lithuanian citizens. Their age range is from 35 to 43 years old. The interviews were conducted in March 2021 using semi-structural questions (Denzin, 2001, 2016). Without a doubt, these interviewees do not represent all possible different voices; nevertheless, reacting to the recommendations for the Delphi method in Future Studies (Beiderbeck et al., 2021; Chermack et al., 2020), the first step of the research is to interview individuals who could give a broad enough view of the research field. They are and they are not people-yet-to-come—they talk about new people and/or the people-yet-to-come. The interview consists of several thematic items related to the crises which are at the center of the discourse on the Anthropocene: globalization, the future of humans, change of school culture, perception of time and space, climate change and ecology, technology, the future of schools. I am focusing in this paper mostly on time and space, on the future people, as well as the ‘new people’ of our day currently taking part in education. The interviews were interpreted based on Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts (1980/2013) and the anthropocenic approach to education (Cole, 2022; Gamble et al., 2019; Malone, 2018; Vallee, 2018; Wallin, 2020).

To be minoritarian in a sinking Titanic

First of all, the movement of humans has been outlined by the specialists (interviewees), emphasizing the uncontrolled situation of migration, especially in reaction to climate change. The strongest was the opinion of the sociologist, who doubts whether anything can keep people in concrete places; they will always be in a time of transition. ‘Future people will be nomads, first of all physical, but also mental. They should be in becoming, becoming a minority.’ In the words of the interviewee, ‘you become a world minority. You become Europe. A small, stale continent of the old world that tries to remain a kind of a museum on the inside’ (S). Nevertheless, the concept of a minority sounded not as a disappointment, but as a promise. In the interviewee’s view, the new kind of people should understand the value of being a minority. The process of changes is so rapid that today or in the near future, any minority may become a majority: ‘in other words, one day everything will turn in the other direction […] and people will behave accordingly [to their new status]’ (S). The relation of the present to the future is explained by the example (metaphor) of the Titanic. The ship is already sinking: ‘While one side is sinking, on the other side people are drinking and playing the piano. In 2050, people will see that the ship is sinking and that the end is near. There will only be the question of when the ship finally plunges to the seafloor’ (S). Nevertheless, the interviewee believes that the Party of Freedom, which is one of the leading political parties now in Lithuania (in coalition with the majority-conservative Homeland Union), has the potential to change the current situation. In other words, the people that have a special understanding of the processes of the future are among us already. They are in the minority, and this is not a weakness on their part, but rather a strength. Nevertheless, this otherness and minority is seen in sync with a state system or systems prioritizing the power of the ‘average’ man (in the interviewee’s words—in Europe). So, the minority, according to the interviewee, appears first as a new way of thinking for the people, and later as a foundation for the surviving population, differently from the Deleuzo-Guattarian minority, which was seen as resistant force in a system which signifies and controls people. Deleuze understands and describes, even partly justifies a similar situation, saying that ‘[w]hen a minority creates models for itself, it’s because it wants to become a majority, and probably has to, to survive or prosper (to have a state, be recognized, establish its rights, for example). But its power comes from what it’s managed to create, which to some extent goes into the model, but doesn’t depend on it’ (Deleuze, 1990/1995, p. 173). Thus, on the one hand, the concepts of the interviewee are close to the concepts of Deleuze, outlining novelty as resistance and creation, and on the other hand—the interviewee remains on the side of supporting the state policy for the majority.

It gets worse vs. Hope for deterritorialization

The position of the astrophysicist is a little different and perhaps more skeptical concerning people in future education: ‘it is not clear how many of us will survive the adaptation, but the survivors will endure at the expense of others’ (A). Meanwhile, the educational problem in the biologist’s view is that schools ‘do not allow students to feel that they can do something [for the sake of bettering the situation] and to see the influence that this can have on the world’ (B). The interviewee also refers to citizen science, which in their mind is very useful, especially the Zooniverse projects, which ‘start with space photos and end with herbariums and questions asking to describe what’s in the photo. And now kids could get involved and […] be more involved in the future’ (B).

Rethinking citizen science in the Anthropocene and especially in the field of bioacoustics, Deleuzian interpreter Mickey Vallee claims that citizen science is ‘the collective response to the necessity for sounding on global and local time-frames’ (Vallee, 2018, p. 201). This pertains to all fields of the environment. In his view, citizen science can absolutely change the understanding of the role of science, knowledge, experimentation, and invention. He stresses the role of the community in gathering and recognizing knowledge, and how the community can navigate in a society of control; this control takes on the form of active citizenship and creating knowledge that is not only interdisciplinary but also intra-disciplinary. The interviewee shares the same or similar vision of the future in education and science, including the people who will participate in the transformation of science and the schooling environment.

While some interviewees put their hopes on forces like activism and the activists’ struggle for the future of the planet, they consider that teachers, administrators, and politicians are still looking to regulation as the key factor, which means more control and limitations instead of free pedagogy and active participation in building a better common future. That is especially clear in the words of the sociolinguist:

The current system in Lithuania is one of political and geopolitical thinking and tends to isolate rather than seek uniqueness, because we do not properly perceive the world and our place in it. […] Returning to the concept of locality is necessary, which can only be done through educating people and cultivating the understanding that this is a global issue, and what are the consequences of global inaction in solving problems like climate change; I think the future of the school will be even worse, i.e., even more regulated thinking, or the school moving to a direction where there is no clear distinction between the teacher and student, compulsory sitting and such other things […]. For some change of the person at school, I would say that more years are needed, also a free education – a necessary separation from the school as a physical space. […] There is also a particular kind of public shaming as climate change activists delegitimize the school itself and its teachers (SL).

It is evident that this interviewee has their doubts. The educators, according to him, need more time to understand the value of change and of liberating the school system. The future belongs to assemblages of unseparated elements: in equal positions we have the teacher, the student, the different spaces, and many other factors, as we see in the suggestions in the Dialogues of Deleuze and Parnet (1977/2007). Activists and interventions through citizen sciences could help bring about such change faster. However, the controlling system of society and education seems too strong to give much faith for any change occurring, though some hope still remains.

Imagination for marketing purposes: Deterritorialization as reterritorialization

There is another position regarding climate change and the progress of technologies that is not marked by any fear of urgent problems or questions that need solving. For example, the IT specialist thinks that all discourses toward the domination of technology and change of human origin are used merely for the purposes of marketing. ‘And if you think about all those ideas, they work very well for marketing purposes and for certain interest groups, corporations. It’s good to spread all sorts of ideas, such as people prolonging their lives and the like. It’s interesting to read and it overwhelms the imagination, but will it be real?’ (IT). The interviewee questions the imaginary, but does that from another view than Deleuze. Not because the imagination is unreal or real, but because it is a very pragmatical way to increase any effect for marketing purposes. In this view, imagination is treated as a tool to create unreal scenarios that frighten people and then offer solutions that people will easily believe in, thinking that these are the means to ensure the safety of their future. Fear is more like a tool for keeping people in control and within a re-productional regime, and it gives easy means of manipulation, as fear allows drawing the limits of actions. In the Deleuzo-Guattarian way, fear is one of the dangers (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/2013, p. 265–267) and works more like an obstacle instead of supporting action (Massumi, 2005). It deterritorializes, but only for searching for a new shore, which is no less controlled—in other words, something recognizable, stable, and thus safer. In this respect, the interviewee’s opinion would be close to that of the French philosophers. His perspective, in a sense, is wholly different to that posited by Lewis and Kahn’s (2010) imaginational project about the future people as monstrous entities—these are seen as just overwhelming visions. Unlike those frightened by technologies, the interviewee treats technologies as a possibility to expand the territory of the school and the teaching/learning process. The interviewee states: ‘I would like to see that it would be much easier for people in Lithuania, working or studying, to get involved in clubs, schools, and exchanges with others who are in the UK, America, China, Africa or somewhere else. And technology can provide us with those opportunities’ (IT). The interviewee refers to a nomadic way of learning, which reflects globalization and is partly Deleuzo-Guattarian. Nevertheless, a new reading of Deleuzo-Guattarian texts in relation to the Anthropocene reverses this rather positive connotation of people-yet-to-come as nomads streaming in many directions, claiming that it should be based less on the exceptionally prioritized, multi-directed way of life in a globalized world, gradually becoming smooth for capitalistic and consumer life (Marder, 2016, p. 500), and instead more on responsibility for the place which the nomad crosses.

Imagination and milieu: Decentralizing the perception of environment

In contrast to the ideas shared by the IT specialist, another interviewee is much more optimistic concerning the imagination for innovations of the people-yet-to-come, especially in describing the role of the milieu, environment, and spacetime. By rethinking the present and the future and what must be changed in adhering to this chronological direction, they say that

Milieus are the dimension of our coexistence. And it is not a thing in the Euclidean sense, wherein we define them in terms of the mediums where they are formed and to what aquariums they are limited to, but on the contrary, those relationships are very mobile, they are spatial, they can be seen from whichever perspective we look at them. In other words, if we are talking about a bacterium or a virus, then man is the medium of the virus, and if we are talking about man, then man is also surrounded by the milieu of bacteria and viruses. This milieu is seen in the future perspective; there is no center where we start with the human being and then look at the other actors who make up that coexistence. This is why I see it as productive and having an educational meaning, an educational perspective. (Ph)

The interviewee emphasizes imagination, which lets us restrict the human position, starting from the point of perception, cognition, and behavior. This signifies a spatial change, or in other words—seeing the position of elements in a different way, in their close relationship and dependence on the mobility of the center, which is ever-changing and thus eventually becomes decentralized. This spatial, environmental, and agentic understanding put forth by the interviewee could be called, in their words, social relationships in the space-time plane. Finally, the interviewee states: ‘I think this thing could and should be at the heart of the school of the future. Here are some of those systems: environmental thinking, awareness of technological systems, as I call it to myself, which spans many levels. We can also talk about the other side, which changes my focus, my concentration, even the way my imagination works.’ Imagination in this case is strongly valued, as it is a tool for changing the look and the understanding of the position of the assemblage’s elements, subsequently changing thinking and behavior. It is not done for any other purpose but to recreate the way of a human being in a less anthropocentric manner and find new connections with the environment and space-time. We can surmise that this interviewee uses the example of bacteria as a way to interpret the new materialist perspective and not necessarily use the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Nevertheless, we can find some interesting connections. As Myra J. Hird and Kathryn Yusoff state, ‘[w]hile Deleuze and Guattari proposed planes of becoming that were understood to integrate a range of forces to generate politics and sociality, which differentiate to produce different stabilities, bacteria can be understood in these terms as agents of absolute difference, able to deterritorialize the integrity of stratification through a few rounds of monstrous coupling’ (Hird & Yusoff, 2020, p. 52). It seems the interviewee is of similar opinion, using the example of bacteria to switch our traditional view on the human and its environment. Later, switching their imagination from the nonhuman to the technological, the interviewee-philosopher understands the immense impact of informational technologies on the contemporary society and education and adds on the harm posed by the virtual space and the networks that one must constantly work for.

Is it a productive imagination?

By summing up, I can say that the visions of interviewees concerning the future people and the future of education are different, some being rather skeptical while others much more positive. Everybody refers to human thinking in a new way—that it should be (1) more critical concerning the information and visions that unreasonably stimulate the human fear of the future, (2) more critical concerning the present restrictions in education as well as the limitations put on experimenting, suggesting more alternative ways to involve people, e.g. citizen science and climate activism, and (3) more creative, allowing to imagine the environment and its milieu in a new way—decentralized and smooth across all networks. If the first two seem rather practical solutions, the third one needs an absolutely new philosophical approach, close to the ethico-onto-epistemological approach of new materialism (Barad, 2003; Gamble et al., 2019) and resembling Malabou’s plasticity (Hogstad & Malabou, 2021).

Space, according to some of the interviewees, is very concrete—a school space that should be physically deterritorialized or ‘de-schooled,’ meaning establishing a school without bounds, as Lewis and Kahn (2010) state in their concept of exopedagogy, and a space with many narrow paths and many faces. According to others—this school space can be combined with the virtual space by making it possible to join lessons in any country and any school. We see two different treatments of nomads, who could be migrants escaping their inconvenient living places already affected by the consequences of the Anthropocene, or merely ‘global browsers’ communicating with a world without borders. They use the situation, but unfortunately do not create the situation, as suggested by Deleuze and Guattari in their theories of escaping the line of flight (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/2013). Another interesting viewpoint lies in the idea of space becoming a milieu, a smooth, network-based, rhizomic environment without a center that would let the student be one agent among many (organic and non-organic), as stated by Deleuze and Guattari (1980/2013) and Malone (2018). Nevertheless, the dynamism of the center and the smoothness of the space are presently seen by Deleuzian interpreters (e.g. Marder, 2016) as becoming features of capitalism, with almost no chance of escape being involved in its flow. This has not been expressed in the words of the interviewees, except of one and only partly, doubting the officially announced crisis and evaluating it as a typical capitalist maneuver. According to most interviewees, we found descriptions of the transitory position of a contemporary human, who stands at the crossroads between the global and the local. Meanwhile, time is seen by interviewees in their projections as the nearest possible future, which is very close and very much dependent on the present. The present is understood as a time for decision-making and taking responsibility, while the future is considered unpredictable, uncanny, and subject to play under imagination; except for two interviewees, the future is also seen in rather dystopian colors. One expert sees many possibilities for creation, while another considers the future in neutral terms, or with some sense of expectation that people will anyhow find the best way to build a welfare society. This absolutely contradicts the radical position of Jason Wallin, who argues that ‘the ‘human’ must become something else to survive is a moot point, as it is obsolescent conceit that the world as it is for us’ (2020, p. 110). This standpoint, which is more or less common in the works of other researchers (Haraway, 2016), is especially aimed at rethinking the role and direction of education and learning to teach about humanity only as one of many species, equal to others and not exceptional, hence not as owners of planet Earth (jagodzinski, 2018; Snaza, 2018). It presents a sound argument; nevertheless, views based on the instinct to remain on the Planet in any form are still dominant both in the academic discourse and for the interviewees in empirical research imagining the educational future.

It is doubtful whether this research gives a ‘productive imagination’ as it was described by Smith (2012, p. 358), following Patton’s analysis of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy. This map of imagination(s) does not present either the strictly individual or social. It is somewhere in between, when every individual is affected by a social contagion to think about the future and the school changes in terms of the new perception of space and time. Their imaginations try to draw different, even contrasting paths (lines) of the future, which could be added to the creational machine concerning a vision of the future. These differences allow us only one avenue of escape, which is usually doomed to be systemic and politically stratified.

Conclusions

The Deleuzo-Guattarian people-yet-to-come are not making any promises, instead thinking and behaving in a new, inventive way. They actualize potentiality, which can be very rich by variety, absolutely unique, and astonishing in its imaginational surprises. It presents a way to escape the controlled society, and especially controlled education, which is directed toward strengthening consumerism and green capitalism, though these expectations of escape were recently also questioned by some interpreters. The positive expectations are related to smooth space, space-time, a combination of a variety of elements, assemblages, networks, and some resonances of the elements through changeable rhythm and events. The future does not yield to prognosis, yet it is created by the people and dependent on them, on how their thinking and behavior resonates with other actions in the environment, and on what kind of events their resonance produces.

In moving from the Deleuzo-Guattarian people-yet-to-come toward the Anthropocenian people-yet-to-come, the biggest challenge lies in finding an explanation of and a way to escape the presentiment of a fatal future.

The results of the interviews presented in this paper give a broad picture of educational and school future, partly corresponding with the insights of the abovementioned theoreticians, yet also diverging from their views, sometimes strongly criticizing such radical imaginational portraits of future education and people in education as well as unmasking manipulations based on the concepts of time and space. However, some of the interviewees presented quite novel visions on time and space in the school culture, as well as different portraits of people that might become involved in creating a school culture, or perhaps an education without schools, in the future.

The view of the interviewees is rather anthropocentric, and their imagination strives for either humanity’s survival or a better life for it. Some references to nature, other species, and bacteria show certain steps toward thinking about being and becoming with others when others are non-humans, as well as trying to avoid binaries and stratification. This can be understood in the Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective, which speaks of unpredictable and uncontrolled change of assemblages through deterritorialization. The Anthropocenian perspective emphasizes the future catastrophic consequences of human civilization and tries much more purposefully to rethink the direction of changes in society and education. It presents great difficulties in avoiding stratification and a single way to think about human survival. Nevertheless, one thing is evident—that the people represented by the interviewees are waiting for any salvation event, stemming from the real, less real, or even unreal in their views, while all that is possible reaches exhaustion.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lilija Duobliene

Lilija Duobliene is a professor and head of Education Theory and Culture Department at the Institute of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University, Lithuania. Her research focuses on the philosophy and ideology of education, creativity and cultural encounter. Her recent works and projects are related to posthumanism, education in the Anthropocene and future studies.

Notes

1 The first English edition of Deleuze and Guattari (1987).

2 In the Deleuzian context, deterritorialization stems from territorialization and is used side by side with reterritorialization. Nevertheless, ‘[n]either does a territory provide a base or originary term (home) from which deterritorialisation may occur. Instead, it is a constant accompaniment to (and even proponent facilitating) the lines of flight deterritorialisation proposes’ (see Parr, 2010, p. 281). Nomads are inhabitants of open, even places, they create such a spaces by moving in all directions, with a tendency to deterritorialize. The question still remains how much they are revolutionary and transformative, and how much do they change spaces by occupying them, unfortunately at the same time distributing the very thing they try to escape (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/2013; Marder, 2016).

3 The term was suggested by Crutzen and Stoermer in 2000 (see Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000).

4 The name is written in the lower case at the request of its holder.

5 The process of ‘becoming is certainly not imitating, or identifying with something’, it is involuntary (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/2013, pp. 278–279).

6 In Cole’s view (2022), four main drives (tool enhancement, the carbon trail, the Phallocene, and Atomic time) have created this epoch, and the author suggests using the same drives in the opposing direction as a means of resistance to green capitalism.

7 Unfortunately, it is only a part of the project based on the Delphi research method, which consisted of interviews, two rounds of survey of educational representatives, and three focus groups. The results (four scenarios) will be published separately, as they need a broader explanation. Taking results from the middle of the investigation (between the theoretical part and the empirical Delphi research) corresponds to the Deleuzian position of acting from the middle (1990/1995), in particular if we treat this text as action in the Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective.