Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Sealing Future Geogra phies: Religious Prophecy and the Case of Joanna Southcott Journal:For Transactions Peer of the Institute Review of British Geographers Manuscript ID: TIBG-RP-Aug-2012-0070.R3 Manuscript Type: Regular Paper Keywords: Prophecy, Temporality, Futures, Religion, Faith, Materiality This paper seeks to contribute to an emerging debate in human geography concerning the spatialities of the future, and aims to address a gap in work on the geography of religion regarding the temporalities of faith. Through a focus upon religious prophecy, the paper seeks to examine how different spaces, temporalities, identities, practices and dispositions (both religious and secular-scientific) are generated through and generate this religious Abstract: future. The paper argues that prophecy is a particular form of making the future, and advances the dual notions cosmic-divine time and preparatory assured readiness in order to understand and underline this specificity. Through the example of the prophetess Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) and an event involving a box of her prophecies publically opened in 1927, it argues that prophetic space-times presence the future through multiple and intersecting ‘not-yets’, hesitancies and assurances. Page 1 of 44 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 1 1 2 3 4 Sealing Future Geographies: Religious Prophecy and the Case of Joanna 5 6 Southcott 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Abstract 14 15 16 17 18 This paper seeks to Forcontribute Peerto an emerging Review debate in human geography concerning 19 20 21 the spatialities of the future, and aims to address a gap in work on the geography of 22 23 religion regarding the temporalities of faith. Through a focus upon religious prophecy, 24 25 26 the paper seeks to examine how different spaces, temporalities, identities, practices and 27 28 dispositions (both religious and secular-scientific) are generated through and generate 29 30 31 this religious future. The paper argues that prophecy is a particular form of making the 32 33 future, and advances the dual notions cosmic-divine time and preparatory assured 34 35 36 readiness in order to understand and underline this specificity. Through the example of 37 38 the prophetess Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) and an event involving a box of her 39 40 41 prophecies publically opened in 1927, it argues that prophetic space-times presence the 42 43 future through multiple and intersecting ‘not-yets’, hesitancies and assurances. 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 Keywords: Prophecy, Futures, Temporality, Religion, Faith, Materiality. 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Page 2 of 44 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 Introduction 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 The future has been increasingly interrogated by human geographers in the recent 14 15 16 past. Work in what has become known as ‘future geographies’ has sought to examine 17 18 how the future is thought,For how Peer it precipitates Review certain forms of action in the present, 19 20 21 how it is felt through different modes of affect, and how a multiplicity of spaces and 22 23 places are both produced through and are productive of the future. One of the key 24 25 26 insights of this literature is, paradoxically, how the future, the ‘not-yet’ and what is to 27 28 become, is made spatially present in the here and now: in other words, how 29 30 31 geographies are co-ordinated, brought into being and performed through the making 32 33 present of the future . At the heart of this endeavour is a critique of a linear and 34 35 36 teleological vision of time, and an awareness of how multiple future temporalities 37 38 circulate in, are given form and are acted upon in the present. The future is thus 39 40 41 understood as a temporality that is folded and unfolded in, and through, practices and 42 43 achievements in the geographical present (Anderson and Adey 2012a). 44 45 46 47 48 Alongside work on the excess of the event as formation of the (unknowable) future (see 49 50 51 Dewsbury 2000), human geographers have taken a particular interest in the logics of 52 53 anticipation and how the future is variously governed in the present. Notable here is 54 55 56 Anderson and Adey’s work (2011, 2012b; Anderson 2010) on future securities and 57 58 59 60 Page 3 of 44 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 3 1 2 3 4 anticipatory techniques, and the logics of planning through scenario enactment (see 5 6 also Graham 2010 on urban governance and security). In a similar fashion, Evan’s 7 8 (2010, 22) investigation into “the assertion that obesity poses a threat to the nation” 9 10 11 shows how this claim requires “the future space of the UK to be made ‘real’ in the 12 13 present” through techniques of prevention (where an apparently assured future is 14 15 16 closed down) and pre-emption (where uncertain futures are prepared for and given 17 18 form in the present).For Evans seeks Peer to analyse Reviewhow the future is disclosed through 19 20 21 statements, calculations, practices and performances and, in-so-doing, how the future 22 23 is made present so it may be acted upon in the here-and-now. Evan’s work also reveals 24 25 26 how the future is made present through certain affective capacities, echoing Anderson’s 27 28 arguments about the affective resonances of hopeful dispositions, and their role in 29 30 31 sensing and realising the future (2006a, 2006b; 2007; Anderson and Fenton 2008). 32 33 Here the force of hope presences the future, acting as an imperative to action in the 34 35 36 here and now, and filling present geographies with a sense of possibility and 37 38 potentiality. In a parallel development relevant for this paper, Dittmer’s (2007; 2008; 39 40 41 2010) exemplary writing on evangelical sign watching has sought to explore the 42 43 specifically religious temporalities of eschatological thinking in order to investigate how 44 45 46 spatialities of faith and belief produce particular geopolitical narratives and discourses 47 48 (see also Sanderson 2008; Dittmer and Sturm 2010; and Holloway 2011a; 2011b). With 49 50 51 a similar religious focus, Sanderson (2008) has explored how future geographies are 52 53 realised in the present through hopeful embodied dispositions of a messianic return. 1 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Page 4 of 44 4 1 2 3 4 However, for the most part, human geographers have been relatively silent on the 5 6 production, practices and implications of religious or spiritual futures. This paper seeks 7 8 to address this apparent lacuna and contribute more widely to the discussion of (more 9 10 11 secular) future geographies: the aim here is to focus on the specificity and particularity 12 13 of prophecy as a religious temporality and hence extend both the field of future 14 15 16 geographies and the how the future is theorised in the geography of religion. Thus, 17 18 religious temporalitiesFor of prophecy Peer are produced Review and performed through a distinct set 19 20 21 of characteristics and processes that distinguish it from other ‘present-futures,’ such as 22 23 the forms of pre-emptive and precautionary action discussed by Anderson, Adey and 24 25 26 others. The specificity of the prophetic encounter and event can therefore lend further 27 28 insight into how the future is disclosed and acted upon in the present. This difference is 29 30 31 posited here by exploring what can be deemed geographies of cosmic-divine time and 32 33 preparatory assured readiness as modes of disclosing and attending to the future. 34 35 36 37 38 A key question for this paper is how religious prophecy, as a way of presencing the 39 40 41 future, affords a specific relation to time. To answer this question, the paper begins 42 43 with a brief overview of how prophecy has been analysed and understood in the extant 44 45 46 literatures, and how we might begin to differentiate it from other kinds of future. I then 47 48 seek a close accounting of the work of prophecy and the prophetic event in a number 49 50 51 of ways: how prophetic spatialities are performatively brought into being; how the 52 53 spatio-temporal generation of prophecy is achieved through and affords different 54 55 56 subjectivities; and how prophecy works with, generates and surfaces from different 57 58 59 60 Page 5 of 44 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 5 1 2 3 4 (affectively charged) milieus of religious faith, belief and secular reason. My focus, then, 5 6 is what prophetic statements and events do, how they are formed through and from 7 8 different geographies, and how they act as an imperative to (often political) action. 9 10 11 Prophecy, as a religious practice, has been mostly associated with ‘religions of the word’ 12 13 (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) and oracular prophesying (Shepherd and Shepherd 14 15 16 2009). In this paper spoken utterances and texts take their place alongside more 17 18 embodied, sensual andFor material Peer forms as active Review constituents of prophetic events, and 19 20 21 the spaces and places they generate. In what follows I seek explore these foci and 22 23 provide answers to these questions through the life of a particular prophet and, more 24 25 26 extensively, a specific prophetic event associated with their life and mission.