Rethinking, policy futures and utopianism

Abstract

After many years of dominant anti-utopianism, there has been a resurgent and fruitful interest in utopian thought across disciplines. In our uncertain times, many theorists call for a rethinking of what counts as a desirable future. We respond to this call from an interdisciplinary perspective on the interconnectedness, and potential common cause, of utopian philosophy, organization theory and pedagogy. The present essay aims to: contribute to policy futures a nuanced account of utopian thought; enrich the theoretical conceptual toolkit with the interpretive categories of utopianization and dystopianization; and indicate the ambiguous politics of the utopianized task ‘to rethink’. By exploring ‘rethinking’ in a counter-utopian manner, we hope to illustrate complexities of imagined futures that compel investigation of interdisciplinary utopian synergies and tensions.