Imagine, predict or perform? Reclaiming the future in sociology beyond scientism and catastrophism

In this article I examine and criticize some mainstream views of the future within scholarly debates, mainly in social science. The goal is to review the strategies sociology is following to include the future as a theme of its own reflections. Such strategies also reveal relevant aspects of the society in which they are developed. The main argument revolves around some tensions concerning the relationship of contemporary societies to their future. The key points can be summarized as follows: in contemporary complex societies, where change is believed to be the only constant, social science seems to have abandoned the future as a theme of its reflections, while at the same time prediction and forecast are increasingly necessary. Future studies are, therefore, mainly an enterprise for managers and engineers, taking place in either government or corporate environments and far from the academy. Why is this happening? And is it necessarily so? What does sociology know about "the future(s)?...