Sociological Futures and the Importance of the Past

Abstract

This article argues that in order to engage sociologically with the future the discipline needs to rediscover its historical imagination. It makes three main points. First is the idea that sociology needs to be more historical and to illustrate how this has been done well before. Second, it explores ideas, concepts and theories used in thinking about the past, which are in turn useful in organising how we imagine the future – in particular nostalgia, and especially that surrounding industry. Finally, it offers ways of thinking about the sociologically mediated relationship between past, present and future through the burgeoning field of deindustrialisation studies.