postworld

postWorld is a speculative concept used to describe a future condition that follows a major global transition or crisis that disrupts the established order. The term appears in speculative fiction, futurist thought, and design studies as a framework for examining how social, political, economic, and technological systems might reorganize when the prior world-system no longer governs.

Origins and usage: The term combines the prefix post- with World, signaling a state beyond the current world order. It is not tied to a single discipline and emerges in varied contexts to explore transformation, resilience, and adaptation rather than prediction.

Concept and themes: postWorld-oriented analyses consider governance structures without centralized sovereignty, economies oriented toward resilience or sufficiency rather than growth, and identities that are culturally or digitally hybrid. Issues of data governance, privacy, sovereignty, and ethical norms arise as central concerns in imagined transitions. Environmental stressors, automation, climate change, and geopolitical fragmentation are common drivers in proposed scenarios.

Variants and relationships: In fiction, postWorld often serves as narrative backdrop or world-building premise. In policy and design discourse, it informs scenario planning, governance experiments, and system-design principles that assume post-crisis conditions. Critics caution that the term can be nebulous without clear triggers or measurable criteria.

See also: postdigital, posthumanism, post-scarcity, world-building, future studies.

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