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Myths of the Future in a Post-Corona World: An Exploratory Study in Ecuador

Witter, Tim B. (2021) Myths of the Future in a Post-Corona World: An Exploratory Study in Ecuador.

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Abstract:When people contemplate the future, future archetypes, or future world states, shape how the future is constructed. Despite an assumed context-independence, the question arises if future image construction is indeed context-specific. One derivate of those future archetypes are myths of the future. Building on the work of Boschetti et al. (2016), this study explored how those myths of the future come to the fore in imaginations of a post-Corona future in Ecuador. The current study was based on an existing data set of the study “Will the World Never be the Same? Letters from a Post-Corona Future”, which asked participants to construct a narrative of a post-Corona future, using the methods “Letters from the Future”. Therefrom, a sample of 25 male and female Ecuadorians was selected for further qualitative analyses. Results largely replicated those myths of the future found by Boschetti et al. (2016) (i.e., eco-crisis, power and economic inequality, social crisis, social transformation, and techno-optimism), and offered two additional myths (i.e., eco-revolution, and Coronavirus-aftermath). The findings, in essence, support, the notion of universality of the myths of the future. Yet, they also point to some degree of context-specificity when viewed at the feature-level compared to myth-level. Future studies could expand on the findings by applying them to another context.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/87880
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