Nostalgia, the future, and the past as pedagogical technologies

• This article provides a genealogical perspective on narratives about the past and the future as governmental discourses in teacher education, public health, and criminal justice in Sweden. Contemporary governmental strategies bring nostalgic memories of the past and visions and fears about the future back to life in the present. The past (history) is a technology of the present to re-memorialize who "we" are and have been. The future is a spatial concept, a technology to shape and nurture the "future oriented" subject bent on the pursuit of lifelong learning. The notions of history and future in the construction of the lifelong learner function to link and harmonize the interest of the individual with that of society. As technologies of government these are not new. Similar technologies were operating in the discourses about the future, society, and the citizen in the first part of the 20th century. What is new is the particular capabilities and capacities of the individual as an agent of the future and the collective principles in which life is lived. © 2007 Taylor & Francis.

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