Imagining Tomorrow Through Community with Rob Hopkins
Cultivating Community and Imagination to Shape the Future
In this episode of the Cohere podcast, co-hosts Bill Johnston and Dr. Lauren Vargas interview Rob Hopkins, Ph.D., co-founder of Transition Network and author, on the power of community imagination in shaping our future.
Dubbed a "guest from the future," Rob shares his insights on creating spaces for collective dreaming and the journey towards a healthier relationship with the internet. They discuss the ingredients for successful community initiatives, the role of imagination activists, and overcoming barriers to our creative potential. With storytelling as a pivotal theme, Rob also touches on the concept of 'embodied futuring.' The conversation concludes with a teaser into the intriguing research for his upcoming book.
Image source: Rob Hopkins
““I live in a little town in the southwest of England, which is called Totnes, and we have a sort of Silicon Valle of time travel, I think.
We’ve been working very hard over the last 10 years to build a time machine, and we’ve succeeded in building the world’s first fully functioning time machine, inspired by lots of different things.
The range from Sun Ra and his approach to talking about time and space and inspired by black quantum futurism and inspired by a whole range of different things.
And we use it to explore different futures to challenge that idea that there is “the future” as a thing that’s laid out for us very thoughtfully by neoliberal growth economists. Actually, there are many different possible futures. So we use it to explore those.”
In this episode, we discuss the following:
[01:24] Welcoming Dr. Rob Hopkins and Setting the Scene
[02:34] Greeting the Future with Rob Hopkins
[06:08] Defining the Imagination Activist's Mission
[09:06] Fostering Spaces for Creative Thinking
[12:28] Highlighting Cases of Imagination in Action
[22:59] Practicing Embodied Futuring Techniques
[33:57] Delving into Rob's Upcoming Research Endeavors
Mentioned in this episode:
[Book] From What Is to What If: Unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want by Rob Hopkins, PhD
Digital Kinship: Redefining Relationality in the Digital Age
What if we became the best storytellers we could possibly be? A blog for Civic Square.
About our guest:
Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Network and of Transition Town Totnes, and the author of several books, including ‘The Transition Handbook‘ and, most recently, ‘From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want.’ He is an Ashoka Fellow, has spoken at TED Global and several TEDx events, and appeared in the French film phenomenon ‘Demain‘. He holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth and is a Director of Totnes Community Development Society. He hosts the podcast ‘From What If to What Next‘. In November 2022 he was made an Honorary Citizen of Liège in Belgium by the city's mayor.
Call-to-Action(s):
If you liked this episode, check out: How Hopeful Stories Can Shape a Better Future with Ed Finn and From human-centered social networks to the Plentiverse with Meena Palaniappan
For more reflections about the intersection of community and exponential technologies, subscribe to the Cohere Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.
Share your thoughts about future guests / topics of exploration.
Check out #BookDNA for a list of books, articles, and whitepapers featured on the Cohere Podcast.
