From Official Document Utopias to Collective Utopian Imagination

Abstract

In their chapter, Teräs, Teräs, and Suoranta critique the current dominant narrative of the digitalization of higher education. They argue that reports and vision papers by powerful international and national organizations such as the OECD not only predict but also build a certain kind of digital future. They call these reports “official document utopias,” and reflect on their discursive truth with past utopian literature. The authors argue that we should use collective utopian methods to imagine genuinely alternative “postdigital” futures, and to this end, they introduce the Method of Empathy-Based Stories. While discussing its history, they also reflect on its potential and limitations through a study with Finnish teacher students, imagining the digitalization of higher education in 2050.