Remembering past futures

It may happen that individuals orgroups remember some futures they expected in the past. Remembering past futures may occur in many communicative practices, from daily life conversations to scientific and political discourses. However interesting such a kind of memory may be, it has not been fully analyzed yet. It is a complex topic; working on it implies the intertwining of two fields of investigations: memory and future studies. In this chapter, we will try to account for this intertwining and will briefly explore some contexts in which remembering past futures emerges in communication practices of different kinds. We will also underline how memories of past futures may be useful, both to social scientists and to social actors. As to social scientists, the focus on past futures is a tool that can be helpful in the history of societies and cultures. As to social actors, in their daily or their professional lives, the recollection of some futures they imagined in the past may give new impetus to the ability to currently imagine the future; but it can also allow one to evaluate present plans and expectations in light of what has happened to yesterday’s anticipations.