Figurations of the Future

Built around key events, from the eviction of a self-managed social centre in Copenhagen in 2007 to the Climate Summit protests in 2009, this book contributes to anthropological literature on contemporary Euro-American politics foreshadowing recent waves of public dissent. Stine Krøijer explores political forms among left radical and anarchist activists in Northern Europe focusing on how forms of action engender time. Drawing on anthropological literature from both Scandinavia and the Amazon, this ethnography recasts theoretical concerns about body politics, political intentionality, aesthetics, and time.

Stine Krøijer is Assistant Professor at University of Copenhagen and is working on autonomy, anarchism, environmental and forest politics, and the Amazon.

“… Krøijer's fine book offers a clear explanation regarding the nature of a significant political and social entity termed ‘left radical,’ an umbrella term for those engaged in a movement (not of Soviet origin) that is particularly strong in Scandinavia… An important and interesting book on a significant subject for faculty and students of law and Western Europe who are able to manage a complex volume… Highly recommended.” · Choice

“Krøijer’s monograph is a highly readable analysis…[that] makes excellent use of anthropological theory to think imaginatively about change-making but also about the good life in our crisis-ridden historical moment, and it demonstrates the particular power of ethnographic fieldwork for investigating contemporary politics, even where the exercise is fraught with ethical dilemmas… Figurations of the Future demonstrates that there is nevertheless much that anthropologists, with their comparative insight, can say and do to enrich the ways politics is understood and conducted.” · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“A study of political activists shines a light on a hidden world and raises theoretical questions of time, intentionality, and action that have great potential implications for cultural theory and anthropological analysis…Ideas like Kroijer's could revolutionize anthropological analysis and writing, and others are already working along many of the same lines—making 'culture' a less central and unproblematic factor in social action than anthropology has customarily done.” · Anthropology Review Database

“An excellent, intriguing, book [that] puts forward a number of connected theses, in activist politics... the emergence of a certain regime of temporality with ‘cosmological’ import and the priority of form over content in the generation of a certain indigenous concept of style that is importantly different from the classic Birmingham-school notion.” · Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

“The robust notion of style, which goes beyond earlier theorizations derived from cultural studies, is especially important. At its best, Figurations of the Future provides compelling ethnographic description that generates important theoretical insights.” · Maple Razsa, Colby College