Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic research in innovation centers located at the rural periphery of Israel, we detect a strong influence of future imagination technologies such as communal practices and local interim knowledge, highlighting a strong connection between future imagination, space, and place.

Paper long abstract:

Innovation is generally associated both with the creation of something new and with the neoliberal discourse of profit-making, and is often understood in relation to modernity and its prime social site, “the city.” Accordingly, the coupling of innovation and the rural periphery may seem incongruent. Drawing on ethnographic research on Israel’s high-tech scene, we analyze innovation centers located primarily in kibbutzim in the northern and southern periphery of the country. This allows us to juxtapose the ultra-modernist and individualist ethos of the creative actor against a more communal understanding of social life. In these sites, we observe not just the imitation of “urban” innovation, but also the strong influence of unexpected imagination technologies such as the honing of a community sense and the use of local interim knowledge in the design of technologically innovative products and services.

These technologies serve as intermediaries between future imagination and local socio-cultural spaces. Examining what is taking place outside urban centers thus enables a more complete and nuanced understanding of the interplay between innovation, future imagination, and society at large, pointing to the connection between (un)common future imaginations in the contemporary world.