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Short abstract

Drawing on research on emerging digital contraceptive technologies, this article advances an approach to studying sociotechnical imaginaries as ethico-onto-epistemological enactments. I show how research shapes what counts as an imaginary, whose voices matter, and which futures become imaginable.

Long abstract

Sociotechnical imaginaries are a widely used framework for understanding futures as co-produced through society and technology. However, existing research tends to privilege discrete stakeholder perspectives while sidelining the more diverse people, contexts, and practices through which technoscientific futures are made to matter. Drawing on empirical research on emerging 'digital contraceptives', this article advances an approach to studying sociotechnical imaginaries as ethico-onto-epistemological enactments. I argue that imaginaries are not pre-existing objects waiting to be identified, but are produced through research encounters that shape what counts as an imaginary, whose voices matter, and which futures become imaginable.

I show how this premise shaped my research across two interrelated studies: (1) an online exploratory mapping of the ‘digital contraceptive imaginary’ using Google Search to assemble a corpus of diverse materials from various stakeholders; and (2) creative qualitative workshops inviting potential users to encounter and intervene in the imaginary. In this presentation, I will demonstrate the workshop format, including visual prompt cards and a speculative design exercise, adapted from Søndergaard’s ‘Troubling Design’ framework.

From this approach, I offer three reflections on researching futures as sites for collaborative intervention. First, I show what becomes visible when attention shifts from comparison between discrete imaginaries to the complexity within a singular enactment. Second, I argue that collectives, institutions, and publics should be assembled empirically rather than assumed. Third, I demonstrate the value of creative qualitative methods as modest interventions in how futures are imagined and enacted otherwise.

Key words: Sociotechnical Imaginaries, Publics, Creative Qualitative Workshops, Inventive Methods.