In Uncertainty by Design Limor Samimian-Darash presents cases of the use of scenario technology in the fields of security and emergency preparedness, energy, and health by analyzing scenario narratives and practices at the National Emergency Management Authority in Israel, the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe, and the World Energy Council. Humankind has long struggled with the uncertainty of the future, with how to foresee the future, imagine alternatives, or prepare for and guard against undesirable eventualities. Scenario-or scenario planning-emerged in recent decades to become a widespread means through which states, large corporations, and local organizations imagine and prepare for the future. The scenario technology cases examined in Uncertainty by Design provide a useful lens through which to view contemporary efforts to engage in an overall journey of discovering the future, along with the modality of governing involved in these endeavors to face future uncertainties. Collectively, they enable us to understand in depth how scenarios express a new governing modality.

In Uncertainty by Design Limor Samimian-Darash presents cases of the use of scenario technology in the fields of security and emergency preparedness, energy, and health by analyzing scenario narratives and practices at the National Emergency Management Authority in Israel, the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe, and the World Energy Council. Humankind has long struggled with the uncertainty of the future, with how to foresee the future, imagine alternatives, or prepare for and guard against undesirable eventualities. Scenario—or scenario planning—emerged in recent decades to become a widespread means through which states, large corporations, and local organizations imagine and prepare for the future. The scenario technology cases examined in Uncertainty by Design provide a useful lens through which to view contemporary efforts to engage in an overall journey of discovering the future, along with the modality of governing involved in these endeavors to face future uncertainties. Collectively, they enable us to understand in depth how scenarios express a new governing modality.

Modes of Uncertainty offers groundbreaking ways of thinking about danger, risk, and uncertainty from an analytical and anthropological perspective. Our world, the contributors show, is increasingly populated by forms, practices, and events whose uncertainty cannot be reduced to risk - and thus it is vital to distinguish between the two. Drawing the lines between them, they argue that the study of uncertainty should not focus solely on the appearance of new risks and dangers - which no doubt abound - but also on how uncertainty itself should be defined, and what the implications might be for policy and government. Organizing contributions from various anthropological subfields - including economics, business, security, humanitarianism, health, and environment - Limor Samimian- Darash and Paul Rabinow offer new tools with which to consider uncertainty, its management, and the differing modes of subjectivity appropriate to it. Taking up policies and experiences as objects of research and analysis, the essays here seek a rigorous inquiry into a sound conceptualization of uncertainty in order to better confront contemporary problems. Ultimately, they open the way for a participatory anthropology that asks crucial questions about our contemporary state.