Paper short abstract:

This paper theorizes contested and lived futures in the context of Central Queensland's coal and gas towns. It develops frameworks to better understand how communities account for contingency and direct their actions towards a desired future.

Paper long abstract:

Through ethnographic evidence taken from a small town in central Queensland's Bowen Basin, this paper explores the complexity of contested futures around coal and coal seam gas in the region, both in the contested content of envisioned futures (mining versus agriculture, for example) as well as the various ways in which these futures are 'lived.' By lived futures I mean the ways in which people's future consciousness motivates and informs their actions in the present, and the frameworks for dealing with contingency they utilize in the present in order to direct their actions towards a desired future, without ignoring the role of the past in the crafting of futures. I have identified three distinct forms that lived futures take: hope, planning, and speculation (cf Weszkalnys 2014). 'Hope' represents a lived future that rests on affect, connections to place, or concepts of fate or higher power (Crapanzano 2003; Miyazaki 2004). 'Planning', rests on the assumption that the future can be controlled through the proper foresight and policy (Adams et al. 2009). Finally 'speculation' believes that future risks can be managed, but maintains an element of uncertainty and risk through which profit can potentially be generated (Reith 2004).