Future perfect offers a groundbreaking exploration into the imaginative lifeworlds of people making perilous crossings across the Mediterranean. Focusing on the individual stories of Ali, Mahmoud and Mohamed, who travelled from rural Egyptian towns to the shores of Southern Italy, this book invites readers to engage with migration beyond its political and visual depictions. By recognising the crucial role imagination plays in shaping the lives of migrants, the book makes a compelling case for collaborative storytelling as an ethnographic method that redefines reality through multiple imagined possibilities. Through a combination of theatre, collaborative filmmaking, co-devised storytelling performances and participatory animation, the book transforms the traditional ethnographic approach, moving beyond mere representation to engage with the subjunctive – capturing life as it could, would or may have been. This innovative work seeks to engage a broad audience, offering a creative and responsive anthropology that recognises the silences, ambiguities and emotional landscapes often left out of public narratives about migration. By drawing on performance and participatory media, it builds connections between research participants, readers and audiences, encouraging a more complex engagement with the migrant experience. Future perfect thus challenges conventional ethnography, blending political, ethical and aesthetic practices to create new ways of understanding the human experience at the crossroads of crisis and imagination.

This book is included in DOAB.