The Future as Practice A Framework to Understand Anticipation in Science and Technology

Abstract The future has become a common theme in governance of contemporary
societies, particularly in the context of technological development.
It is presented as open and uncertain, which, either as an opportunity
or as a threat, demands a sense of urgency. Concretely, the future is embodied
and made present through expectations, which have a performative
effect in the constitution of socio-technical fields. These expectations are
embedded in socio-material practices, through which they are produced,
shared, shaped and contested. In this essay, I propose a framework to understand
anticipation as a set of interrelated techno-scientific practices,
which I call an anticipatory assemblage. This perspective has two contributions:
first, it allows an in-depth understanding of phenomena such as technological
hype cycles. Secondly, it frames the performative aspect of expectations
in relation to governance, by considering how a series of anticipatory
practices co-produce techno-scientific fields. I specify this framework
using the case of two emerging technologies: graphene and 3D printing, for
which I stress some of the differences in anticipatory practices and governance.