Abstract:

The Covid-19 outbreak has affected the entire world and intensified problems that already existed prior to the pandemic. The crisis brought to light that we are facing bigger problems than the spread of the virus, including the rapid deterioration of ecosystems and the growing impacts of climate changes. Also, it has called into question our own approaches to sustainability as they no longer offer a pragmatic framework for envisioning the potential pathways leading towards a desirable post-pandemic world. Even though the current crisis is profoundly affecting life around the planet, scholars and policy-makers are kin to recognize that the coronavirus outbreak has set up a window of opportunity to redefine the interactions between humanity and nature, and to re-imagine and reset life-saving measures for the future. Researchers suggest that a majority of citizens see a focus on environmental issues as a continued priority as we emerge from the Covid-19 crisis. In this context, one question arises: what kind of conceptual strategic foresight could inspire educators to rethink sustainability in order to accomplish the lifelong learning goal, previously declared in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?

Looking for pedagogical inspiration, this work explores what a post-pandemic discourse about sustainability might look like, through a selection of eight marketing campaigns. In the sphere of communicational studies, it is largely accepted that the so called ‘creative creators’ are regarded as communities of practice which have a recognizable role in advancing transformative stories about climate changes. In the paper, we try to characterize the main conceptual strategies used by advertisers to articulate forward-looking scenarios related to food production and consumption. Our analysis employs a qualitative methodology in which the concept of frame-shifting is used to examine the structure of prospective thinking that recur in the campaigns. Our findings suggest that discourses that set expectations about the future favour, mainly, the Gen Z in their attempt to drive connections to the brands; that they endorse the regenerative values and practices shared by both, the Slow Food movement and the strategic sustainability plans of large companies; and that they set lifelong regenerative scenarios with the help of friendly digital technologies of communication. To conclude, we suggest that the articulation between the concepts of regenerative discourses, sustainable futures, and backcasting scenarios, turns out to be an essential epistemological strategy to set up a post-pandemic cultural ideation relevant to the treatment of sustainability in a variety of pedagogic situations, including lifelong learning in community.

Keywords:

Post-pandemic cultural ideation, regenerative discourses, sustainable futures, backcasting scenarios, lifelong learning.