2020
We live in a period of accelerating change. New trends, technologies and crisis emerge rapidly and transform familiar social and political landscapes. Established and cherished ideals, with deep historical roots, can be overturned overnight. Unconventional and uncommon notions and events can appear as thought from nowhere, proliferate, and become dominant. Everything seems to be in flux, nothing can be trusted. All that we regard as normal is melting away right before us.
The postnormal times theory attempts to make sense of a rapidly changing world, where uncertainty is the dominant theme and ignorance has become a valuable community. The Postnormal Times Reader is a pioneering anthology of writings on the contradictory, complex and chaotic nature of our era. It covers the origins, theory and methods of postnormal times; and examines a host of issues, ranging from climate change, governance, Middle East to religion and science, from the perspective of postnormal times. By mapping some of the key local and global issues of our transnational age, the Reader suggests a way of navigating our turbulent futures. Postnormal Times are best defined as ‘an in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense’.