Ulrik Jennische

Ulrik Jennische has a PhD in Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. He has degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Political Science from Uppsala University. His dissertation project concerned issues of moral economy, citizenship and democracy in relation to small-scale trade in urban Ghana. Jennische is teaching at the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, in a wide range of anthropological courses at both basic and master levels.

About the project

Ulrik Jennische is a researcher and research assistant in Global Foresight Research project. Together with Adrienne Sörbom he is analyzing UNESCO and its Futures Literacy project. UNESCO has since 2012 engaged and mobilized a large group of futurists, researchers and consultants into working together pro bono to improve the capability of people across the world to “use the future”. It is argued, that by deconstructing images of the future as dependent on our anticipatory systems, actors will improve their ability to see alternatives and make decisions in the present. Drawing on ethnographic data and documents, the research analyzes key assumptions of the FL program, and the role the program is intended, and hoped for, at UNESCO. We aim for understanding the social forces that the program identifies as drivers of development, and what social ills it is meant to remedy both locally at UNESCO and in the world. In so doing, we will also see some plausible ills that the program is not aiming for.