Thumbelina’s Fury: A Serresian Vision of Future-Creation in a Polycrisis World

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Presenting three short vignettes from Scotland and Greece, this paper explores viable future-creation among youth encountering a world in polycrisis. Taking a conceptual lead from Michel Serres, it considers how the via (path) of βίος (life) is lined with generative βία (violence). The three scenes critique the indeterminacy of viable futures by considering the temporal depth of imagining the future, the technological platforms facilitating the actualisation of futures, and the intergenerational psychosocial impacts of dealing with polycrisis. All stories are lined with the violence of novel eventedness at an epochal ‘hot spot’ juncture in history. The ethnographic snippets show how future-creation among youth questions categories of scientific and academic knowledge and generational assumptions about responsibility for dealing with a world on fire. A Serresian framework shows how youth renegotiate contracts between human beings, humans and the environment, and between teachers and students at this critical intersection on timelines of future-creation.