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In this work, the author contends that we should create a comparative framework for the study of imaginary worlds in the social sciences. Making use of extended examples from both science fiction and fantasy fiction, as well as the living movement of steampunk, the reader is invited to an argument about how best to define imaginary worlds and approach them as social locations for qualitative research. It is suggested in this volume that increasing economic and existential forms of alienation fuel the contemporary surge of participation in imaginary worlds (from gaming worlds to young adult novels) and impel a search for more humane forms of social and cultural organization. Suggestions are made about the usefulness of imaginary worlds to social scientists as places for both testing out theoretical formulations and as tools for teaching in our classrooms.
List of contents
Chapter One: Imaginary Worlds in a Comparative Framework.-Chapter Two: Steampunk as Stealth Politics.- Chapter Three: The Perils of Belief - Fantasy Fiction as Narrative Theology.- Chapter Four: Androids as Slaves - Lessons from the Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick.- Chapter Five: Imaginary Worlds and Contemporary Alienation
About the author
Wayne Fife is Professor of Anthropology at Memorial University, Canada and the author of
Doing Fieldwork and
Counting as a Qualitative Method, as well as many journal articles on heritage and eco-tourism, economic inequality and education, play as politics, social alienation, ethnographic research methods, and implicit forms of religion.
