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About me

Dr. Elise Kraatila is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working in the field of narrative studies. Her research project at Tampere IAS concerns the rhetoric and epistemics of speculative storytelling across contemporary Finnish and Anglophone media environment.  Speculative narratives, in fiction as well as nonfictional texts like news media and science communication, are characterized by scenario-building and hypothetical or contrafactual ‘what if’ propositions. In the atmosphere of uncertainty that currently pervades our media discourses (captured by the term ‘permacrisis’, Collins Dictionaries Word of the Year 2022), making the future seem both unpredictable and precarious, such narratives are frequently used to consolidate, communicate and legitimize contingent knowledge about possible futures.

The project asks, what potential do these speculative narratives have to provide epistemic access to such futures – and how do they shape, expand or constrain our collective ability to imagine what those futures might look like?