The Prospect of Elsewhere: Engaging the Future through Aspirations in Asia

Abstract

There has been a recent surge of interest in “the future” as a subject and object of analysis in human geography, mostly centered on uncertainty and threats posed by terrorism, transspecies epidemics, and climate change. In contrast, relatively little attention has been given to that ways in which humans engage futurity in their everyday lives and geographies. Although acknowledging some important exceptions, in this article we seek to build specifically on anthropologist Arjun Appadurai's call for a more people-centered and “democratic” consideration of future making. What Appadurai terms an “ethics of possibility” is about rescuing the future from the “avalanche of numbers” associated with expert calculation in the realms of science and technology, security and geopolitics, and health and insurance. We argue that human geographers are among the “culturally oriented social scientists” who are equipped for scholarly advancement of an ethics of possibility. Our own geographic contribution emerges from field-based qualitative material collected as part of a wider collaborative research project on aspirations in urban Asia. In the accounts that we present from cities in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, it is the prospect of elsewhere—and of being elsewhere—that nurtures imaginings of aspirational futures and spurs efforts to realize them. In addition to drawing empirical attention to people, places, and regions that do not often feature in Anglophone human geography, our article contributes to geographic conceptualization of how futures are being prospected in cultural imaginaries and through an array of spatial practices.

晚近人文地理学中, 逐渐浮现将 “未来” 作为分析主题与目标的兴趣, 并且多半聚焦恐怖主义、跨物种流行病以及气候变迁所带来的不确定性与威胁。反之, 相对而言, 鲜少有研究关注人类在日常生活与地理中涉入未来性的方式。尽管承认若干重要的例外, 我们企图于本文中特别以人类学家阿帕杜莱对于打造未来之考量更以人为中心且 “民主” 之呼吁为基础。阿帕杜莱称为 “可能性的伦理” 之事物, 是有关让未来免于科技、安全与地缘政治及健康和保险领域中的专家计算之 “数字的大量涌现”。我们主张, 人文地理学者身为能够胜任推进可能性伦理之学术议程的“以文化为导向的社会科学家”的一员。我们自身的地理贡献, 来自于以场域为基础的质性物质, 这些物质蒐集作为研究亚洲城市的渴望的更为广泛的合作研究计画之一部分。在我们呈现中国、印尼与越南的阐述中, 是来自他处——并且身在他处——的展望, 滋养了渴望的未来之想像, 并推进了实践这些想像的努力。除了绘製人类世的人文地理学并不经常聚焦的人们、地方与区域的经验关注之外, 我们的文章对于未来如何在文化想像中、以及透过一系列空间实践而受到盼望之地理概念化做出贡献。

Recientemente se ha presentado una explosión de interés por “el futuro” como sujeto y objeto de análisis en geografía humana, interés más que todo centrado en la incertidumbre y la amenaza planteadas por el terrorismo, las epidemias que trascienden las especies y el cambio climático. Por contraste, relativamente poca atención se les ha prestado a las maneras como los humanos confrontan lo futuro en sus vidas cotidianas y geografías particulares. Reconociendo algunas excepciones notables, en este artículo tratamos de construir específicamente a partir del llamado del antropólogo Arjun Appadurai por una consideración de la edificación de futuro centrada en el pueblo y más democrática. Lo que Appadurai llama una “ética de posibilidad” apunta a rescatar el futuro de “la avalancha de los números” asociada con el cálculo del experto en los reinos de la ciencia y la tecnología, la seguridad y la geopolítica, y la salud y el seguro. Sostenemos que los geógrafos humanos se encuentran entre los “científicos sociales culturalmente orientados”, equipados para el progreso erudito de una ética de posibilidad. Nuestra propia contribución geográfica surge del material cualitativo basado en observación de campo, recogido como parte de un proyecto de investigación colaborativa más amplio sobre las aspiraciones en la Asia urbana. En los relatos que presentamos de ciudades de China, Indonesia y Vietnam, es el prospecto de lo de más allá—y del estar en otra parte—lo que alimenta la imaginación de los futuros soñados y lo que acicatea los esfuerzos para lograrlos. Además de atraer la atención empírica hacia pueblos, lugares y regiones que rara vez cuentan en la geografía humana anglófona, nuestro artículo contribuye a la conceptualización geográfica sobre la manera como los futuros están siendo prospectados en los imaginarios culturales y a través de una variedad de prácticas espaciales.

Key Words:

• Asia
• aspirations
• culture
• futurity
• prospecting

关键词：:

• 冠键词
• 亚洲
• 渴望
• 文化
• 未来性
• 展望。

Palabras clave:

• Asia
• aspiraciones
• cultura
• futuro
• prospección

Acknowledgments

Research assistance from Aa Fuad Jamil, Ari Kistiwi, and Ng Hui Ying is gratefully acknowledged, and we thank Daniel Goh for his collaborative support and insights. A preliminary version of our article benefited from helpful suggestions made by members of the Social and Cultural Geographies research group in the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore. We are also grateful for anonymous review comments and editorial guidance from Nik Heynen that helped to refine our arguments.

Funding

Research for this article was funded by Singapore Ministry of Education AcRF Tier 2 grant (MOE2012-T2–1-153) on “Aspirations, Urban Governance and the Remaking of Asian Cities.”

Note

Notes

1. Others include social geography research on young people's aspirations in the realm of education (Holloway, Brown, and Pimlott-Wilson 2009) and in relation to their parents' migration (Khoo and Yeoh 2016), critical political economy analysis of populations rendered surplus in and through supposedly inevitable futures (K. Mitchell 2010), work on the queering of heteronormative notions of reproductive futurity (Oswin 2012), and Lefebvre-inspired examination of everyday experimentation with urban possibility (Pinder 2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim Bunnell

TIM BUNNELL is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117570. E-mail: [email protected]. His research focuses on urban change in Southeast Asia and constitutive connections between that region and various elsewheres.

Jamie Gillen

JAMIE GILLEN is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117570. E-mail: [email protected]. Alongside his ongoing interests in cultural and urban geography in Vietnam, he is currently working on a comparative project on smallholders in Asia.

Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho

ELAINE LYNN-EE HO is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117570. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include citizenship and migration, diaspora strategies, and emotional geographies.