Anticipatory action learning: Theory and practice

Anticipatory action learning (AAL) draws from action learning/research traditions and Futures Studies to develop a unique style of questioning the future with intent to transform organization and society. Case studies from futures workshops are used to illustrate the main points of anticipatory action learning. These are: (1) sensitivity to the environment—workshop dynamics and ways of learning/knowing of participants, (2) questioning leads to anxiety in the organization, (3) anticipatory action learning can be easily appropriated, (4) resistance must be named, understood and transformed, and (5) the future is deepened by authentic understanding of the other.     

Paths of learning, grieving and transforming

This paper looks at the internal paths people walk as they are engaged in learning about future generations. The deep personal relevance and immediacy of the topic engage students as whole persons in learning processes that transform their perspective on the world and on themselves. Facilitating students as they go through this transformative learning cycle is the task of the teacher. Furthermore, although not widely recognized as such, grief is a part of any learning process as people let go of one thought, perspective or behavior, and try on a different one. When the topic is emotionally loaded with such profound implications as that of the future of our planet, grief becomes even more intense for the learner. Thus educators benefit from an understanding of both learning and grieving processes as they teach courses about future generations. By acknowledging the mourning associated with transforming the learners' world view, educators may assist students to move beyond immobilizing blocks and despair to creative action. This paper explores the normal experiential learning cycle and natural grief processes as they are played out within students while learning about global futures.     

Psychological and ethical considerations when teaching futures studies

This paper explores ethical and psychological issues in teaching futures studies. A range of political, economic, religious, and philosophical assumptions are discussed in terms of how they influence one's view of the future. Special attention is given to the concept of future generations and its application in teaching about long-range implications of contemporary actions.     

Dimensions in the confluence of futures studies and action research

This article puts forward the proposition that the confluence of action research and futures studies can be seen across a number of domains: political, organisational, grassroots, global and individual. While this confluence embodies an heterogeneity of practices, it is their underlying approach, the processes used, which are shared. Identifying both the many distinctive practices in their unique contexts, and their more homogeneous processes is the primary task of this paper. Aspects of this confluence are explored as they relate to social change, empowerment, humanisation, ways of knowing and ethics.     

Transforming teachers’ temporalities: Futures in an Australian classroom

There is much rhetoric in education about the ways in which students are prepared for ‘the future’. The notion of the future in Australian education is dominantly singular, vague and abstract. This paper describes research which investigates changes which occur within teacher practices, enacted curriculum and student learning. The case study at the centre of this research focuses on a primary school south-east of Melbourne, Australia, which is internationally acknowledged as ‘innovative and leading’ in ‘educating for the future’. Initially, it was apparent that this notion of the future was assumed, and these specific teachers had given little thought to what that future looked like, or how that related to students’ learning requirements. As a result of professional learning, the teachers underwent temporal transformation, in integrating explicit futures dimensions within their curriculum. Arising from this research were significant key findings which highlight the need for a reconceptualisation of the ways in which curriculum and pedagogy are enacted in regards to notions of multiple futures. Furthermore, it generates renewed calls for futures perspectives to be addressed explicitly within education. Importantly it highlights a deficit in current teacher thinking about their roles in ‘educating for the future’.     

New generations of futures methods

This paper presents and further explores the issues discussed during the “New generations of futures methods” session at the WFSF 19th World Conference, Budapest, Hungary. The generational interplay has many different facets and can be looked at from many various perspectives. This paper looks at a broader role of young people as agents of cultural change in societies, their relation to futures studies and the implications of their fresh ways of thinking for futures methods. Also, the past evolution of futures methods and the challenges facing the present and future generation of futurists in regard to methodological as well as general development are reviewed. In an effort to draw together these issues and provide practical ways forward for futurists and their field four integrating themes are addressed:

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Allowing for differences, how do we develop solidarity between generations?

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What does the near-future outlook tell us that might help to achieve this?

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What personal, organisational and social capacities are needed?

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What methods are available for building social foresight?

     

Problematizing international business futures through a ‘critical scenario method’

This paper proposes the need for change in how managers in international business (IB) determine organisational objectives and what criteria they use in addressing complex problems. We propose a move from a largely firm-centric focus; on profit maximization and shareholder value; to a broader societal and environmental view. We see the educational context as the locus for initiating such a shift. However, we see obstacles within the canon of mainstream IB textbooks, with their focus on exposition of normative models of managerial action, illustrated by case studies of successful multinational enterprises (MNEs). Whilst we acknowledge their incorporation of critical issues, we view the lack of substantive critical reflection on the wider implications of IB activity as underpinned by an implicit assumption of the ‘good’ of IB. We posit that the normative structure of mainstream texts militates against students understanding the full range of possible futures for IB practice, and against developing the capability to cope with situations of uncertainty and ambiguity. Seeking to promote a critical pedagogy that accommodates consideration of both mainstream approaches and critical responses to these, we propose one approach to teaching and learning about IB futures that is based upon development of what we term ‘critical scenario method’. This offers a basis for active investigation of complex problems in the ‘real’ world from a range of perspectives, beyond that of profit maximization. We provide a worked, case example of our new method and demonstrate how it will enhance perceptions/understandings of involved and affected actors’ interests and their likely (re)actions as a particular scenario unfolds. The theoretical grounding for this approach is based upon contemporary social science interpretation of the Aristotelian concept of phronēsis, or ‘practical wisdom’.     

Causal layered analysis: Poststructuralism as method

Causal layered analysis is offered as a new futures research method. It utility is not in predicting the future but in creating transformative spaces for the creation of alternative futures. Causal layered analysis consists of four levels: the litany, social causes, discourse/worldview and myth/metaphor. The challenge is to conduct research that moves up and down these layers of analysis and thus is inclusive of different ways of knowing.     

Transcending flatland: Implications of Ken Wilber's meta-narrative for futures studies

The Western futures project was originally founded on empiricist notions of prediction, forecasting and control. While other approaches to futures work, other traditions and ways of knowing, have certainly become established, the early framing of Futures Studies arguably occurred out of this broadly reductionist framework—what Wilber has since termed `flatland'. As a result, current ideologies such as: economic growth, globalisation, the pre-eminence accorded to science and technology, and `man's conquest of nature'—were insufficiently problematised. Technology-led views of the future remain influential within Futures Studies, bureaucratic thinking and popular culture. In this view, the future is less open than it might be because it is seen merely as an extension of the present. Critical Futures Studies question such assumptions. The paper explores how the work of this leading transpersonal synthesist can contribute both to a broadening and deepening of Futures Studies and thus help to activate cultural options that are presently obscured.     

Are futures organisations “ahead of their times”? A view of the World Futures Studies Federation in the 21st century

This paper explores the idea of what it means to be “ahead of the times.” In doing so the paper looks at new generations of ideas; new generations of individualism; and new generations of organisational structures and cultures. Weak signals can already be identified from a century ago indicating new ways of thinking within several disciplines such as science, philosophy, psychology and education. These signs of what many regard as evolutionary change in human thinking run parallel with many of the exponential changes manifesting in the external world. The paper argues for a shift beyond egotistic individualism to collective individualism, laying foundations for major organisational transformation to meet the needs of uncertain futures. The paper suggests that futures studies as a field needs to be sensitive to the developmental and paradigmatic changes that have been occurring both within and across the knowledge spectrum. Finally, the World Futures Studies Federation is examined as a case study to determine whether it is, indeed, ahead of its times.     

Futures in Australian education—tacit, token and taken for granted

This article critically examines ways in which futures are conceptualized in the language of Australian education. From an analysis of selected examples of research reports, policy documents and other texts, it is suggested that futures in Australian educational discourse are often conceived in terms of (1) tacit inferences, (2) token invocations or (3) taken for granted assumptions. Conceptualizing futures in such ways may be disempowering and allows education in Australia to be vulnerable to forces of economic and technological determinism.     

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.

Environmental outlooks: How they frame futures and long term uncertainty

Futures studies intend to structure our knowledge and our judgement about the future by handling facts and values in a certain way. In other words, futures studies frame futures. These frames might be powerful, triggering social action and societal transformation, yet they risk to be criticised and provoke scepticism. The environmental field has a long tradition in futures studies: environmental outlooks. Some of these outlooks, e.g. those published by the IPCC are among the most prominent examples of outlooks that provoke scientific, social and political debate, create commotion and provoke action. Part of these discussions deal with how outlooks frame the future and how they handle the uncertainty inevitably linked to framing futures. The way these challenges are dealt with may affect the overall assessment of an environmental outlook. This article attempts to identify the way environmental outlooks frame futures. We do not strive for exhaustiveness, but deliberately restrict to an in-depth analysis of a handful of recent environmental outlooks. We conclude that environmental outlooks reflect a lack of clarity and argumentation upon how they frame futures and how they deal with uncertainty. This epistemological and methodological ambiguity risk to affect the outlooks’ credibility and impact.     

Dominance,stakeholders’ moves and leadership shifts: New directions for transforming futures

Futures literature invites researchers to investigate stakeholders’ interests, actions and reactions, as well as to introduce an analysis of power and influence in scenario thinking. The purpose of this paper is to assess how the concept of dominance can help to improve scenario building and futures thinking as dominance transforms leadership within action processes. First, we examine power at work at different levels using concepts that relate to dominance and leadership shifts. Secondly, we discuss methodological proposals to implement the concepts of weak and strong dominance in action-based scenarios design and the implications of theses concepts for refining the approach of leadership in futures thinking. We conclude that paying attention to dominance transformations in scenarios is a promising direction to develop stakeholder and leadership analysis in scenario thinking. We suggest further research on the connection between history and futures thinking.     

An examination of the relationship between the disposition effect and gender,age, the traded security,and bull–bear market conditions

We analyze how gender and age, internal characteristics of retail futures traders—one that remains fixed while the other changes over a lifetime—and the security being traded and bull–bear market conditions, two external factors, are related to the disposition effect by separately tracking their trade-by-trade transaction histories over a period of close to six years on the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX). We show that women and mature traders, compared with their male and younger counterparts, exhibit a stronger disposition effect. The effect is also stronger among traders who trade financial-sector futures contracts than among those who trade electronic-sector futures contracts. We further demonstrate that a bear market sees a stronger disposition effect.     

Policy metaphors: From the tuberculosis crusade to the obesity apocalypse

In this paper we examine the conceptual and political work that metaphors do, with particular regard to how they construct problems and thus in turn limit the range of solutions.¹ Common metaphors in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia are examined (war, disease and crime metaphors, and the economy and nation as a body) by analysing historical and modern texts about the policy issues of tuberculosis, immigration, asylum seeking, welfare, obesity and food insecurity. Through this we show that metaphors, in conjunction with discourses, may work to: naturalise and privilege certain constructions of problems; attribute blame and responsibility; support claims about the urgency and extent of required intervention (and who should deliver it, to whom and how); influence the identification and consideration of solutions by constructing the problem in particular ways; intentionally or unintentionally result in stigmatisation and non-trivial discrimination (social and workplace); and erase or highlight the role of actors, processes, social relations and systems. Vallis has developed the analysis, the bulk of the paper, and Inayatullah has articulated the theoretical links to causal layered analaysis (CLA). While there are multiple ways to use CLA, in this paper we use CLA to map a number of issues accross perspectives and frames, and to deconstruct creating the possibility for alternative futures. We do not explore alternative or preferred futures.     

Assessing the future of futures studies in management

It can be observed that a growing number of German corporations are using futures studies and its methods in various ways. This evidence suggests that there is a strong ongoing interest in the field of management in futures studies. To assess how the future of futures studies might look like a Delphi study was carried out. The experts in this Delphi study were asked not only to state how futures studies are used in corporations but also what futures studies need to accomplish in order to find more acceptance.The Delphi study suggests that futures studies will become more important in German corporations. In particular, the improvement of methods like environmental scanning, trend research, trend monitoring, strategic early warning and the scenario technique were suggested. While the results of the Delphi study do not suggest that new methods are needed, implementation remains a major concern.     

What future generations might say to us

If future generations could speak to us, what might they say to us about our efforts to learn and teach about them? Probably they would ask us to understand their perspective, to feel connected to them, and to care deeply. When we teach about future generations we should affect the head, heart, soul and hands. This learning and teaching should include inspiration, transpersonal bonding, empowerment, a personal affirmation or pledge, a sense of meaning and purpose, and a commitment to action. Certain books and journals can be especially useful for gaining the perspective of future generations.