Introduction

This introductory chapter examines digitalisation through a temporal lens, exploring how potential futures are envisioned and materialised in the development of digital technologies, and how digitally mediated practices shape potential trajectories. It underscores that digital futures are not predetermined but actively constructed through imaginaries, material conditions, and political and ethical considerations. Understanding digital futures in the making necessitates attention to situated knowledge, as the capacity to shape them is influenced by social positions and lifestyles. The chapter investigates how practices mediate the interplay between imaginaries, materialities, and the politics of digital technologies, highlighting how these dimensions connect past, present, and future in distinct ways. This introduction thus provides an overarching perspective on the contributions to digital futures in the making presented in this volume.