Abstract

Imagination is a basic capacity of humanity and it cannot be annihilated without destroying the human being as the human being. Images are products of imagination and can be manipulated by social means. This concluding chapter identifies some common themes that permeate the volume, and it discerns some guiding concepts. Imaginings of collective futures in this volume are conceived either as decoupling from immediate experience or as being embedded in daily thought. Interdependencies and oppositions between the Self and Others are heterogeneous; they can be considered as hopes and fears, as images of collective futures rooted in the past, and as semiotic means. Contemporary political and economic upheavals all over the world entail questions about rethinking imaginings and transformation of images.