Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore climate change as an injustice in relation to future generations and ask if ethno science fiction as an ethnographic film method could contribute to a ‘temporal proximity’, encouraging critical debate, speculation and sympathy in relation to the lives of future generations.

Paper long abstract:

Official and governmental reports on the effects of climate change are rarely read and do not play a significant part in the everyday life-worlds of most British people. More immediate concerns are often prioritized, and yet, media coverage about environmental disasters and scientific predictions about future environmental threats still play on the imagination of individuals. I refer to this relation as ‘temporal proximity’. This is reflected in the ethno science fiction film Call Me Back (Sjöberg, 2020) of the protagonist James having a phone conversation with his past, present and future selves between 2014 and 2056.

The hierarchy that controls James' perception of the importance of future challenges is similar to news presentations in media, depending on the cultural proximity the audience feels in relation to the news topic. Straubhaar explains cultural proximity as ‘[…] the tendency to prefer media products from one’s own culture or the most similar possible culture’ (Straubhaar 2003: 85). Ethnographic films have traditionally contributed to cultural proximity among the audience by bridging the different with the familiar and mediating complex cultural understanding. Similarly, ethno science fictions present the possibility to create complex understanding and sympathy for future generations – a temporal proximity. Abstract ideas about the future become concrete problems and possibilities as they are imagined and discussed with the audience as an attempt to approach injustice due to the consequence that climate change will have for future generations.