Sofia Ulver

What happens to our dreams of the future when the old promises no longer grip us? For generations, the American Dream promised a better life through hard work and perseverance, while the European welfare state offered its own promise of security, social mobility and gradual progress. Drawing on research among young people in marginalised neighbourhoods in Sweden, this talk explores a vivid (albeit attacked) Dubaian Dream: a growing fascination with an imagined “Dubai” – a world of wealth, safety, spectacle and seemingly limitless possibility, encountered through social media, popular culture and everyday life. I suggest that while the older dreams imagined success as a journey through time, the Dubaian Dream increasingly imagines it as a movement through space. You just have to arrive. But, what happens when digital platforms allow us to inhabit imagined futures long before we ever get there? When future has already arrived – just not here, and not for everyone?



About the lecturer

Sofia Ulver is a researcher, frequent speaker and cultural writer on societal shifts and how markets and consumer culture shape the way we dream and live. Currently, she explores topics such as the conflict market, vulnerable youth, violent consumer culture(s), algorithmic culture, political inertia, extremist fantasies, and futures. Sofia is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Lund University School of Economics and Management and has published widely in international academic journals and national press.

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