Illustration: Tom Mackintosh / Brookfield Institute
The Policymaker’s Guide to the Galaxy
As a writer, I work in speculative genres. As a researcher and policy wonk, I am interested in the role of science fiction in the policy imaginary and how it can create space to imagine both incremental and disruptive change; dystopias, utopias, and everything in between; and the medium and long-term impacts of maintaining the status quo.
Often, science fiction imagines technological or scientific advancement and what that advancement makes possible or instigates, for better or for worse. But it has also been applied to great effect to imagine alternative economies, labour markets, and employment models; community and family structures; social stratification and wealth distribution; and political and governance systems, freed from current (perceived or real) limitations such as affordability, scientific feasibility, political and electoral viability, and social norms; and widely-accepted stylized facts about our current systems, markets, and society.
For the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship, I curated an interview series with science fiction writers on the future of work and the economy. I teach worldbuilding and speculative writing workshops for policymakers as a tool for breaking out of entrenched policy debates and give talks on near and far futures.
Publications:
To the Non-Linear Future and Beyond
An interview with Charlie Jane Anders on potential futures of personal technology, climate change, and human interaction.
Policymaking in an Infomocracy
An interview with Malka Older on policy planning as speculative writing, benevolent surveillance, and the ongoing work of democracy.