Paper short abstract:

I will analyse how rules emerge, change, lose their significance in the context of environmental collapse, for the climate movements and the ethnographer studying these. I will also consider how movements for the future aim to pave a better future through predictive and prefigurative rule-making.

Paper long abstract:

My paper would be considering anthropologically what rules evolve from facing the future of environmental catastrophes, how do relations with existing expectations, regulations, norms change, and how are such changes predicted and rules to prefigure a better future established when fighting against the destruction of the future?

Using data from on- and offline ethnographic fieldwork from activist groups (Extinction Rebellion; forest protests; anti-fracking campaigns) in Estonia and the UK, I will analyse how future imaginings are channelled into action and what rules such action is expected to abide by. What are the social, cultural, creative and systematic ways in which people study, guide, abandon or embrace the idea of profound change in the world where nothing is guaranteed? What rules for the future are foreseen and applied, and what are the relations between the rules of today and the rules of the predicted future? The comparative dimension of this study would provide further insights into what frames and guides such futures when the focus of the main concern is on climate change, biodiversity loss, and/or the extraction industry. What rules must one break today to even take part in the future?

Finally, the presentation aims to consider the methodological aspects of studying the future. What rules should the ethnographer follow and what are they expected, or prefer to, break when the people with whom they study fall with their visions of terrible futures?