My research findings follow new theoretical and methodological trends emerging in anthropology. Whilst exploring the lived experiences of crisis among Polish migrants and Icelander, I have encountered interesting narratives and practices, which unravel a context of specific interdependencies between crisis-driven experiences, anticipation and uncertainty. In Iceland, the future (another crisis) is speculated about and imagined through seeing the past (social practices, cultural meanings) in the present.
Iceland seems to be a very interesting and informative case study, which sheds a new light on both, crisis understood as a social, cultural, economic and political phenomenon and, a rather common in the contemporary world, speculative narrative about the uncertain future. Thus, the research project results in the ongoing problematisations: what does the crisis stand for in today’s world; how it is experienced, imagined and dealt with in terms of formal and informal coping strategies; and, last but not least, in what ways the crisis-driven social and individual memory intersects in the present, and how it influences the future-oriented gaze.
In recent years, anthropologist (for example, Arjun Appadurai, Ulf Hannerz, Paul Rabinow, Kim Fortun, Andrew Irving or Sarah Pink) are engaged in different theoretical and research endeavours, which introduce new field of study in anthropology – the future(s) seen, imagined and anticipated through the relations between the past and the present. This brand new field of scientific inquiries seems to coincide with the increasing uncertainty (real or imagined) of the contemporary world, which takes a form of a rather “dark” global narrative (multiple and simultaneous crisis – economic, political, environmental) and is differently experienced and negotiated by different people across the world (both, in terms of pessimistic scenarios as well as more positive and hope-driven imaginings).
There seems to be a sort of gradual shift in anthropological scholarship, what makes my research findings innovative and significant. Whilst, the classic anthropology was often preoccupied with the so called “salvage” and “redemptive” modes of doing ethnography (i.e., focusing chiefly on the “disappearing” past) and the modern anthropology continues to explore the present (“here” and “now”), the recently emerging new anthropological trends tend to use the present to understand the ways of how people think and imagine the “about to happen” futures. I believe that my project shed a light on such developments by showing in ethnographic detail the complexity of social, cultural, economic and political dependencies, which have an impact on our lives and future-oriented practices. It anthropologically problematised the existing and often taken for granted assumptions about people’s lived experiences, strategies and practices towards the futures.
Headnotes, Jottings & Fieldnotes 