CAPAS RESEARCH PROJECT - Nina Boy Clashing Epistemologies of the Future? Risk, Resilience, and Apocalypse
The project situates the epistemology of the (post-)apocalypse in the current landscape of anticipatory security governance in order to differentiate an apocalypse as a boundary concept within tropes of crisis. Within security technologies of the 21st century, the (post-)apocalypse appears to sit at odds with the rule of the unexpected, radically uncertain future demanding anticipatory action in the form of pre-emption and resilience. If the apocalypse fits into a global atmosphere of doom and large-scale irreversible damage, its fatal certainty and inherent revelation of truth belie regimes of plausible and actionable fictions that inform the governance of the future via scenario-planning and simulation. The question takes on a further dimension in the era of post-truth politics and the shift in epistemic authority from facts to data. While an apocalypse, like resilience, generates the conditions for a new post-apocalyptic order, its trope is not functional and system-based, but has connotations of tragedy and the human epic. The project explores the epistemology of apocalypses in three steps: 1) Plausible futures, 2) Apocalyptic truth in the era of post-truth politics, and 3) A post-apocalyptic world vs systemic resilience.