Operative fictions: how popular culture genres get-in-action in social life

Abstract:

The project examines how culture gets-in-action—influences, shapes and strictures social action. Extending the cultural sociology ‘strong program’ that treats culture as an independent variable with causal influence on social life, the project proposes to operationalize culture via the autonomous and formal cultural model of popular culture fictional genres. Drawing on literary hermeneutics, genre, reception and possible world theory, the project develops a novel conceptual and methodological approach that allows for empirically following how popular culture genres are appropriated and activated by social actors within organizational and professional settings. The project consists of three sub-projects. The first examines the role of science fiction in robotic design within a robotics incubator; the second the role of crime fiction in police work in a national police unit; and the third the role of climate fiction professional climate change activism in social movement organization