Futuring and Futures

The future has recently become an object of study in both human and social sciences. It is not merely an indefinite time period that inevitably comes after the present, but an effective and potent agency which acts upon us as an image, material, symbol, design or number. In the interdisciplinary journal NatureCulture, some articles focused on how the future is prospected, imagined, and created, how it shapes the present, and how people and society deal with it. This focus invited the researchers to revisit some of the classic topics of anthropology such as the gift economy, and opened up the possibility of studies of futures such as speculative anthropology and studies of hopes.