In Search of Non-linear Futures: Feminist Methodological-analytical Strategies for Reading Against the Grain

Feminist and queer thinkers are increasingly problematising linear time and developing other ways of theorising and exploring non-linear time and temporalities. In this article, we join such work as we formulate a set of methodological-analytical reading strategies that can assist us as scholars in writing up alternative futures from empirical data. We focus on young women whose ‘successful’ futures are typically represented as a linear trajectory where actions in the present ensure a gradual progression towards the desired future. However, linear time is not a neutral entity; on the contrary, it is both a performative and political force and, in this article, we argue that it is timely to consider temporal alternatives to the linear norm. Drawing on a QLR study of young women’s future-making in Denmark and taking inspiration from queer theory, affect theory and hauntology, we present three strategies for ‘reading against the grain’ of linear time: reading for temporal points of resistance, reading for lively statements and reading for affective intensities. We argue that these strategies can assist us in amplifying ‘cracks’ in the dominant, linear narrative and thereby can shed light on/‘travel to’ non-linear forms of future-making.