Anais
Resumo do trabalho
Estudos Organizacionais · Simbolismos, Culturas e Identidades
Título
WHAT FICTION CAN TEACH US? Making the case for Utopian Analysis
Palavras-chave
Fiction
Utopia
Desirable Futures
Autores
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Bruno Rossetti LeandroESCOLA DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO DE EMPRESAS DE SÃO PAULO (FGV-EAESP)
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Anna Beatriz NiteroiESCOLA DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO DE EMPRESAS DE SÃO PAULO (FGV-EAESP)
Resumo
Introdução
Utopia was deemed obsolete after the “end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992), yet the desire for better futures persists. This paper argues that fictional narratives, such as the Fallout series (2024), activate utopia as a critical method to expose contemporary social tensions. Rather than offering a perfect model, fiction projects contradictions, desires, and fears, revealing ideological limits and opening space for imagining alternatives.
Problema de Pesquisa e Objetivo
How can utopia, articulated in audiovisual fiction, help us address contemporary social dilemmas? This paper proposes Utopian Analysis as a method for interpreting fiction, identifying structural antagonisms, social exclusions, and collective desires that shape organizational imaginaries and restrict the construction of desirable futures.
Fundamentação Teórica
Drawing on Jameson (1982, 2005) and Levitas (2013), we explore utopia as a form of political unconscious and as a sociological method. We incorporate debates on future-making (Wenzel et al., 2020), nostalgia (Fisher, 2020), and consumer utopias (Kozinets, 2019), arguing that (dys/u)topian fictions reveal both the limits and yearnings of contemporary imagination. Utopia here is a critical and affective way of thinking, not a final plan.
Metodologia
We adopt an abductive interpretive approach. Both authors independently watched the Fallout series (2024) while recording reflections in episode-specific diaries. Two interpretive meetings allowed us to identify three analytical categories: corporate logic, social stratification, and utopian cracks. We draw on Jameson’s narrative horizons and Levitas’ vectors of utopian method to interpret the series’ ideological tensions.
Análise dos Resultados
Fallout portrays fragmented futures shaped by corporate domination, collective resistance, and technocratic ideology. It denounces the privatization of survival, the manipulation of time as power, and the use of nostalgic aesthetics to justify inequality. Yet, acts of care and emergent communities expose fractures where utopian desire and alternative futures can still take root.
Conclusão
Fallout stages a conflict among competing (dys/u)topian visions. Through Utopian Analysis, we show that fiction reveals ideological constraints and blocked possibilities while also opening space for imagining alternatives. Utopia, in this sense, offers no fixed solution but functions as a provocation toward social transformation and critique of the normalized absence of alternatives.
Contribuição / Impacto
This paper proposes Utopian Analysis as a method for organizational research, expanding how we engage with fiction, aesthetics, and critique. By positioning fiction as a space where social imaginaries and ideological constraints are made visible, the paper contributes a novel approach to understanding how organizations and society construct, limit, and contest possible futures.
Referências Bibliográficas
Gümüsay, Ali A. and Reinecke, Juliane (2021) Researching for Desirable Futures: From Real Utopias to Imagining Alternatives. Journal of Management Studies 59(1): 236–242. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12709.
Jameson, Fredric (1982) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Cornell University Press.
Jameson, Fredric (2005) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso.
Levitas, Ruth (2013) Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. Houndmills (Basingstoke), Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jameson, Fredric (1982) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Cornell University Press.
Jameson, Fredric (2005) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso.
Levitas, Ruth (2013) Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. Houndmills (Basingstoke), Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.