Paper short abstract:

This paper compares the role of time and the imagination in science fiction writing and the narratives of ethnographers and their local informants. Both genres create worlds of the imagination on the ruins of ‘real’ worlds, shaping time by attempting to escape its constraints.

Paper long abstract:

Science fiction writers, similar to ethnographers and the authors of local narratives in times of crisis, create worlds of the imagination on the ruins of ‘real’ worlds, building alien worlds that escape mundane time to replace the familiar. Yet these worlds offer seductive, even comforting spaces to readers and listeners who inhabit them with ease. Fiction writing creates shared social worlds in internal solitary reflection, giving full rein to the imagination. By contrast, ethnographic writing and the narratives of those studied are politically, socially, ethically, methodologically and epistemologically monitored. Yet while the ethnographer’s imagination is kept in check, concentrating instead on the study of the imagination of those studied, ethnographic monographs teeter on the edge of anarchy. They contain worlds whose provenance, construction and temporal space are not clearly laid out, yet they claim legitimacy. The narratives of informants perform a similar role, attempting to shape time by escaping its constraints. This paper will begin to develop an ethnography of the imagination and its use of time in storytelling and narrative by comparing ethnographic writing to science fiction writing. It will examine how people smash and create worlds in their imagination. Two or three science fictions writers will be selected (e.g. China Mieville, Ann Leckie) and compared to the narrative worlds created by ethnographers’ informants, especially in times of change and crisis.