Linking foresight and sustainability: An integral approach

This paper looks at the growing confluence between sustainability thinking and futures thinking. Drawing on developments based on Integral Theory, it then looks at how an emerging Integral Sustainability (IS) promises to enhance theory and practice in the sustainability field. In particular, the paper looks at how IS makes sense of sustainability challenges from an ontological position based on perspectives in place of objects (and their systems). A framework is outlined for understanding how various sustainability perspectives are constructed. This framework is then used to analyse a range of general perspectives the authors have identified that relate to nuclear power as a response to climate change. The strength of the IS approach is considered in the context of ongoing debate in Australia over the appropriateness of developing a local nuclear power industry as a response to climate change.     

Environmental scenarios and local-global level of community engagement: Environmental justice, jams, institutions and innovation

National climate change policy currently operates on a continuum from the local community to the supra-national level. These initiatives include local deliberative processes of low-carbon futures as well as local-global interactions in ‘eco-innovation jam’ dialogues carried out in a virtual space, but founded on communicating with local stakeholder groups. Experiences from national processes and international examples of these structured dialogues of community engagement raise important questions of environmental justice and deliberative processes that facilitate participation by some groups, but perhaps also neglect others. This is particularly relevant since the environmental justice discourse traditionally frames environmental concerns in a place-bound manner that includes local responses to environmental questions. In this paper we argue the importance of local and global forums and deliberative processes for community engagement in order to incorporate stakeholders’ perceptions of future options for low-carbon living, travelling and consuming services and products. Important policy transformations in planning for low-carbon societies are outlined and results from cases are discussed. We conclude with three remarks about the importance of citizen participation for understanding local conditions for change, processes of localized internationalization, and new roles for nation states facing the climate change challenge. We also recognise the importance of the local and global level of deliberative processes targeting sustainable urban futures.     

A method for building community resilience to climate change in emerging coastal cities

Rapidly urbanising coastal locations represent prototypes of future cities. While these “sea change” locations will face a range of issues associated with rapid growth such as infrastructure provision and enhancement of social capital, anticipated environmental impacts are likely to add significant challenges. Climate change is likely to have dramatic impacts on sea change communities through diminished potable water supplies, rising sea levels, storm surges, and increased intensity of flood events - with indirect impacts on health, financial sectors, and biodiversity. Given the inherent diversity within sea change communities with regard to age, culture, and socio-economic status there are likely to be differences in ways of adapting, the ability to adapt, and the desired direction of any changes. Cognizant of the potential enormity of climate change impacts, the need for rapid responses, and the diversity within communities, this paper proposes a participatory and transformative method to work with communities in responding to climate change and variability within rapidly urbanising coastal locations. The method focuses on determining probable futures for various communities of place and interest within sea change areas and aims to build the capacity for dynamic on-going learning to achieve those futures, both within and between the communities. Through this process community members may be empowered with dynamic and future-orientated learning skills that build upon community knowledge, innovation, and resilience.     

Pathways to integral perspectives

An integral approach to futures inquiry has been described as the next distinct tradition. That form of inquiry is predicated upon the use of an integral perspective. This paper explores the nature of such a perspective and also relates recent research that sheds light upon that perspective's development. It also suggests methodological pathways that can be explored in order to evoke an integral approach to futures inquiry.     

Characterizing desired futures of Canadian communities

In sustainability research and practice, one method widely used in exploration is visioning, in which desirable sustainable futures are articulated and explored in depth. Communities across Canada have used this method to develop collective desirable futures, in many cases to provide an end goal for local sustainable development. In this paper, we conduct a meta­-analysis of desired futures created by communities across Canada with the aim of identifying regional commonalities according to the three pillars of sustainability, social, environmental, and economic. Although sustainability demands a balance between its social, economic and environmental components, Canadians futures apparently place the greatest importance on social aspects with 338 desires against 222 and 230 respectively for economic and environmental sustainability. Community (105); Infrastructure, development, and transportation (126); and Natural environment (157) are the categories most frequently recorded within each of the three components of sustainability. The meta­analysis also noted significant differences amongst regions. The study was conducted in the context of an initiative known as the Sustainable Canada Dialogues that mobilized 60+ scholars from across the country around a consensus on science ­based, viable solutions for greenhouse gas reduction. Our results suggest that climate policy that simultaneously reduces greenhouse gas emissions while enhancing some of the key aspects of social sustainability would be attractive to many Canadians.     

FutureSelf: Emerging digitized life patterns and a personal future simulation system

Unique information sources, available and accessible in digital networked environments, can be used as a data set for the extrapolation of an individual's potential futures. Based on an interactive analysis process, a carefully crafted system using artificial intelligence, data mining processes and behavior adaptive features can generate contextualized interactive personal future simulations in the form of interconnected micro-future scenarios. Micro-future scenarios provide context-sensitive information, alternative future paths and recommendations based on an individual's personal circumstances and her environment. The emerging future narrative can be delivered effectively by using different communication channels and methods in digital environments. The system aims to enhance an individual's awareness of the consequences of her existence by connecting her personal and social actions to a wider social, cultural, political, economical and ecological context.     

Understanding rural change—demography as a key to the future

The last decades have seen a rapidly growing interest in foresight methodology. Methods have been developed in corporate and governmental communication exercises often labelled technology foresight. In reality, these foresights have often drifted into processes of social change, since technological change is hard to foresee beyond what is already in the pipe-line. Forecasting of social change, however, must be based on solid knowledge about the mechanisms of continuity and change. Virtually nothing can be said about the future without relating to the past; foresights and futures studies are about revealing the hidden pulse of history. Hence, the answer to forecasting the future is empirical research within the social sciences.Demographic change has been recognised as a key determinant for explaining social change. Population changes are fairly predictable and the age transition can explain a wide range of socio-economic changes. For rural futures, demographic change is a key issue, since age structure in rural areas is often uneven and also unstable due to migration patterns. A number of policy related questions as well as research challenges are raised as a consequence.     

Preparing for the professional futures field:: Observations from the UHCLC futures program

The futures field is an arena of increasing interest and activity. This article seeks to: (1) provide general information about key information sources for directed inquiry into futures studies; (2) sketch the origins and current status of the graduate program in Studies of the Future offered by the University of Houston at Clear Lake City—currently the largest and most comprehensive program of its kind; (3) Describe the methodology used in a recent strategic planning and program development project to update the UHCLC program; and (4) convey some guiding observations on teaching and research in futures studies, and on helping students find appropriate employment.     

Meeting in the middle: joining reflection and action in complex public sector projects

In order for co-production to become a viable way of working in public sector management and policy-making, practitioners need to be more reflective and researchers need to be more action oriented. This article discusses reflective practice, action research and the idea of a community of inquiry in which both practice and science work together. The authors illustrate their ideas with an example from their own practice and explain the advantages of their approach.     

Rethinking tomorrow's cities: Emerging issues on city foresight

Rethinking tomorrow's cities now, builds our capacity to act with foresight and create resilient and liveable places. I use methods from the futures studies field, particularly macrohistory, to provoke our current patterns of city making. From macrohistory, the grand patterns of social change reveal some of the key systems dynamics influencing the rise and fall of cities in civilisation. The key urban system dynamics in the broadest sense provide a meta-framework of emerging issues shaping new urban challenges or opportunities for our towns and cities. The hope drawn from the past and present is to focus our urban interventions in the key areas to create future cities of wonder and purpose. The implications of the emerging issues (critical focus areas of city foresight) that arise from the macrohistorical analysis are discussed using the case study of the Maroochy 2025 community visioning project.2025 is a community driven project to develop shared visions and action plans for the Maroochy Shire¹ towards the year 2025, for the purpose of creating an empowering and community owned response to the challenges facing them locally and globally.     

Consumer education and everyday futures work

The purpose of this article is to draft new tasks for consumer education in a transformed and transforming world and consumption situation. The basic claim is that consumer education needs to become empowering or emancipatory, and that this can be reached through emphasizing the futures aspect and skills concerning everyday futures work. The functions of traditional consumer education can be described as socializative, preventive and corrective. This is not enough in a rapidly changing world in which consumers face completely new challenges. Section 2 of this article studies changes focal to the individual consumer. In Section 3 I define the basic functions of a household as an economic unit, consumption and consumer education. In Section 4 I continue the analysis of the functions of consumer education with the help of the neologism everyday futures work, which is grounded on the application of Joseph Nuttin's theory of action. I also argue that to fulfill an empowering function, consumer education has to emphasize the futures aspect. The core concept here is futures-will, which highlights the dynamic character of human action. In Section 5 I suggest relevant solutions for consumer education in relation to the challenges and functions of consumption described above as well as explain how the enhancing of everyday futures work skills could be applied in the framework of the cycle of human action. I conclude the article by discussing some recent topics in consumer education to show that consumer education thinking is in some measure - even if not often explicitly expressed - converging with futures education.     

Anticipatory action learning: conversations about the future

This paper proposes experimenting with anticipatory action learning for helping to create the future. It is an interactive process that relies strongly on a central thread of conversation among a variety of participants, from multiple perspectives, concerned with the social unit or project. Basically, anticipatory action learning is action research modified for foresight. It integrates research/search with decision and action, and downgrades the prerogative of a research elite, empowering all participants. Conversation allows meaning from a range of different worldviews to be shared and negotiated for studying, theorising and otherwise engaging the future—and more importantly, for helping to create it. Criteria are proposed for anticipatory action learning and procedural and administrative limitations are addressed.The visions we have about our own futures vary according to the mindset each of us stands in. It would be fascinating to compare the personally envisioned futures of everyone at an international meeting of futurists. Our futures should converge in some way where we share common interests as futurists, and diverge on the point of intercultural variety. But, would they differ from each other as widely as those of Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese generals?It would be even more telling to compare the range of alternative futures envisioned by world leaders with the visions of their constituents and especially, say, with the visions of a woman in Africa’s Central Lakes region and of the homeless in Osaka.In a similar way, the means of engaging the future in order to study it, and its uncertainties, and the way people think about it, are variously dependent on the mindsets of the scholars and researchers, and the realities they find themselves in. Methodologies of futures studies range across the predictable: from empirical quantitative projection (linear and non-linear); to qualitative interpretation and critical analysis; and to participatory action research or its associate, action learning.Then, futures studies differs according to the disciplinary framework of the researcher, whether in physics, ecology, complexity science, social science and the humanities, critical cultural theory or philosophy. Further, there is the division of the pragmatic and academic perspectives.Actually, the very fact of having a formal methodology is itself derived from a dominant civilisational and ethical perspective, mainly Western.There is another important distinction in futures studies. On the one hand, there is the perspective from which futurists research, analyse and critique the future, or more precisely what other people think and say about the future. On the other, there is the perspective from which people in the focal social unit may think and act to create their own futures.Then, acting to create a future poses at least two further distinctions depending on whether one believes the future is structurally preordained, or whether human interaction and intervention play a significant part.It is from the perspective of participative human agency acting to create one future or another, at least partially, that this paper proceeds.Before going further, let us address the question of whether future-creating can rightly be claimed to constitute the study of the future, or future studies. If it is not part of futures studies, then at least future-creating activity does rely on input from the field, the results of studying and reflecting on alternative options for the future—futures, plural. Whatever way we look at creating the future, as opposed to merely researching data about it, the activity does represent a fairly direct, personal engagement of the future, as much as anyone can do about a time–space that has yet to arrive. This is an important distinction, since many empirical futures studies do not so directly engage the future, well not personally. Rather, they examine stated opinions of others about future options, and other people’s preferences, emerging issues and the like, themselves all valuable activities.

If, as Michel Godet has said, ‘...the future is not written anywhere and has still to be built...’ [[1]], creating the future is a central activity which at least deserves full consideration by the field of futures studies, especially if it relies on the analysis and critique of data generated or accessed around the activity itself.

Futures research and the IPCC assessment study on the effects of climate change

Mainly based on a survey of the occurrence of futures research-related references in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, I have investigated the contribution of futures research to the IPCC assessments of the effects of climate change. The assumption I have made here is that, if futures research has made a contribution to the IPCC assessment work, it should also be reflected in the references quoted or cited. I have also briefly commented on the activities by the futurists themselves regarding the future challenge of climate change. As a complement to the contribution survey, I ask and discuss to what degree futures research could and should be participating in a study like that of the IPCC. The survey of the futures research contributions showed that, up to now, futures research has been only modestly represented in the IPCC climate change effect assessment studies. The contribution both could and should have been more extensive than it has been up to the present, a view to which I return in the final discussion.     

A community of futurists and the state of the futures field

Criticisms of futures studies ought to be evaluated in comparison with those of other fields. For example, compared to the established disciplines, futures studies is less fragmented and has many positive features. Also, controversies among futurists do not mean that futures studies is not a field. Rather, one hallmark of any field of inquiry is that its members constitute a disputatious community. Moreover, futures studies is unified by interlinked and overlapping networks of communications and influences among futurists, a shared transdisciplinary matrix, and the growth of a futurist canon. The future of futures studies is bright, because it is reasonable to hope that futurists will be able to establish the field in most of the world’s colleges and universities.     

Doing futures research—Anthropologically

Applied anthropologists are adopting the assumptions, aims and methods of futures research, and offering the five-concept paradigm—culture, time depth, holism, cross-cultural perspective and multiple perspectives—of traditional anthropology in response to criticisms of futures research. In this article an integration of anthropological and futures research theories and methods is detailed; and the utility of doing futures research anthropologically is illustrated in examples from the initial round of a multi-method, community-focused futures research and public education project.     

Near Future School: World building beyond a neoliberal present with participatory design fictions

This article reports on one part of an on-going project, the Near Future School, which aims to translate and explore the potential of participatory design fiction practices for use with young people and those that work with them to explore near future scenarios of education that open up alternative and plural futures in the context of processes of foreclosure in a neoliberalising society. The focus here is to explore the practical and ethical issues of developing a speculative form of governance, using the philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza, as an act of imaginative world building through participatory design fictions. The research raises a series of questions and issues relating to understanding how design fiction’s multiple inheritances, from fiction and design or art and design, need to be better understood and enacted within participatory design fiction processes.     

Movements toward holism in futures inquiry

This article takes up the question of the various movements toward holism in futures inquiry. The Ken Wilber inspired integral futures, developed by Richard Slaughter and others, and put forth as the most comprehensive approach to-date, is critiqued and assessed. While Wilber's integral and the variant it has inspired in futures represent significant innovations, it also contains the tendency to un-necessarily close down, lock out or to sub-ordinate alternative conceptions of holism, what I term ‘Wilber-ism’. Wilber's ‘theory of everything’ and integral futures are analysed, re-assessed and re-situated in the context of the alternative approaches to holism that exist. What emerges is a rich view of potential genealogies and ontogenies as movements toward holism. One variant from the action research tradition, which I call ‘integrative foresight’, is put forward as an example of an alternative. The article concludes by proposing a process of dynamic dialogue between diverse conceptions of holism, which can at once honour the great diversity of approaches, while likewise continuing the journey of creating shared meaning and common understandings of the complex contexts in which futures inquiry works.     

Changing the Size of a Futures Contract: Liquidity and Microstructure Effects

We analyze the relation between contract size and liquidity using data from the respecification of Sydney Future Exchange's (SFE) Share Price Index (SPI) and 90-day Bank Accepted Bill (BAB) futures contracts. Respecification of SPI and BAB contracts presents a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of a change in futures contract size. SFE decreased the size of SPI futures by a factor of four while increasing its minimum tick. The BAB contract was doubled in size with the minimum tick size left unchanged. We find, after controlling for market factors, that the respecification of the SPI futures resulted in higher trading volume, while that of BAB futures decreased trading volume. The results regarding spreads are ambiguous. Based on two cases investigated, we conclude that decreasing the futures contract size was effective in terms of enhancing liquidity while increasing the size resulted in a reduction in liquidity.     

Action research cycles for multiple futures perspectives

This paper focuses on the cyclical and iterative processes of action research and their usefulness in enabling participants in futures work to expand their images of futures. The author has been developing a participatory method of scenario development, based on action research, using cycles within cycles, thus allowing multiple opportunities for reflection and reperception. Because people can find it difficult to perceive their potential futures, to examine possibilities from different angles can clarify problems and help participants develop their reactions to various futures. This paper presents a case study of the new method, working through a series of cycles with a credit union, arguing that a cycles-within-cycles-within-cycles process has the potential to help make explicit the concealed and subconscious forces affecting the future of the participants' social entity.     

Wendell Bell and the sociology of the future: Challenges past, present and future

As a sociologist dealing with futures studies, Wendell Bell encountered considerable obstacles because his topic - the future, imagined, projected and shaped - poses significant problems for contemporary sociology. The paper discusses Bell's engagement with these disciplinary difficulties and his search for conceptual and methodological solutions. The paper anchors Bell's achievements in a wider historical context, identifies some of the new challenges facing sociology and considers some openings for change in our knowledge practice.