| 1. |
- Höjer, Mattias, et al.
(författare)
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Determinism and backcasting in future studies
- 2000
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Ingår i: Futures. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 32:7, s. 613-634
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, four frequently cited approaches to future studies are criticised. We use examples mainly from the field of transport research. The first approach is the tendency to try to establish cyclic behaviour in socio-technical changes. The second is the view that transport and communication are positively correlated. The third is the so-called 'hypothesis of constant travel time', according to which, the average daily travel time of a population is more or less stable. The fourth is the alleged causal relationship between urban density and petrol use. The use of these approaches is criticised for a number of reasons, among others for over-simplifying the underlying mechanisms and for being too deterministic. In cases where drastic change is needed, current trends must be broken, but perhaps through measures other than those indicated by the above approaches. In other words, the cited approaches may overlook interesting opportunities and fail to urge necessary action. Backcasting is put forward as a more promising approach, especially for situations where great change is needed, However, it has been found in this study that backcasting and different forecasting approaches an complementary. The argument is that backcasting is mainly appropriate where current trends art: leading towards an unfavourable state. Therefore, forecasting methods are necessary because they inform the backcaster when backcasting is required. Finally, the paper discusses the use of different models in planning, primarily in the context of their role in the path analyses of backcasting scenarios.
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| 2. |
- Amcoff, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Understanding Rural Change : Demography as a key to the future
- 2007
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Futures. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 39:4, s. 363-379
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- 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.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Andersson, Claes, 1973, et al.
(författare)
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Societal Systems - Complex or worse?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Futures : The journal of policy, planning and futures studies. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-3287. ; 63, s. 145-157
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The basic observation that we explore in this paper is simple but, we argue, rich in consequences: societal systems combine two qualities that are commonly referred to as complexity and complicatedness. We address the problem that societal systems remain recalcitrant despite the development of powerful approaches for dealing with both of these qualities. The root of this problem we identify to be that the combination between complexity and complicatedness is emergent; i.e. fundamentally and irreducibly different from either quality in isolation. This means that neither class of such approaches can be expected to work well on their own. But it also means that the obvious strategy of combining theory for complexity and complicatedness may be much more challenging than envisioned. In short, systems where complexity and complicatedness is mixed ought to be treated as a distinct class of systems. Noting a connection to what has long been called "wicked problems" we hereby outline such a class of systems that we call "wicked systems". We introduce a simple model and heuristic and discuss some implications for theorizing and modeling.
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| 5. |
- Andersson, Claes, 1973, et al.
(författare)
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Wickedness and the anatomy of complexity
- 2018
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-3287. ; 95, s. 118-138
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Traditional scientific policy approaches and tools are increasingly seen as inadequate, or even counter-productive, for many purposes. In response to these shortcomings, a new wave of approaches has emerged based on the idea that societal systems are irreducibly complex. The new categories that are thereby introduced – like “complex” or “wicked” – suffer, however, by a lack of shared understanding. We here aim to reduce this confusion by developing a meta-ontological map of types of systems that have the potential to “overwhelm us”: characteristic types of problems, attributions of function, manners of design and governance, and generating and maintaining processes and phenomena. This permits us, in a new way, to outline an inner anatomy of the motley collection of system types that we tend to call “complex”. Wicked problems here emerge as the product of an ontologically distinct and describable type of system that blends dynamical and organizational complexity. The framework is intended to provide systematic meta-theoretical support for approaching complexity and wickedness in policy and design. We also points to a potential causal connection between innovation and wickedness as a basis for further theoretical improvement.
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| 6. |
- Andersson, Daniel, 1989-
(författare)
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Future perfect climates : A phenomenological rejoinder to the performativity of climate change mitigation pathways
- 2024
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Ingår i: Futures. - Amsterdam : Elsevier. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 160
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- From charting out climate change mitigation pathways to estimating price risks associated with the social cost of carbon, as environmentally concerned citizens of the twenty-first century, we live in a culture of foresight. Because of a growing integration of an ever-wider sample space of possible climate futures into the present, historical experience has become seemingly irrelevant for effectively predicting where our climate transitions are headed, in effect restricting our sense of futurity to its performativity in the present. What has been surprisingly absent as a theoretical and methodological approach among sociologists, however, are treatments of the performativity of the future as the expression of a historical praxis for prognosis, with its own mode of disclosure. By interrogating the temporal structure of anticipation that characterizes computer-based simulations of emissions scenarios, the paper illustrates how this praxis discloses the future in accordance with the grammatical tense of the future perfect. It then argues that this relationship between past and future is the cultural product of a historically particular set of prognostic techniques and technologies, namely, model-based scenario analysis. Against this background, the paper seeks to contribute to the rehabilitation of the relevance of historical experience by historicizing the social ontological status of the future that theories of performativity take as their starting point.
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| 7. |
- Arora-Jonsson, Seema
(författare)
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The sustainable development goals: A universalist promise for the future
- 2023
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 146
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) have evoked optimism but have also been criticized for reproducing a universal template grounded in a western and neoliberal ideology. Identifying three strands of responses/critiques on the SDGs from a review of literature across several disciplines, I analyze what they have to say in the light of histories of past development work. I analyze how universalism is understood differently in different disciplinary approaches and how, despite its limitations, Agenda 2030 might provide a platform to meet current challenges across the world and a framework to talk across different geographies and disciplines. While a delinking from current development and global economic structures are needed for change, I explore how the SDGs can be used to redeploy development to change those very structures. I argue that decolonizing development calls for changing development structures from inside out as much as finding new ways of being outside it.
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| 8. |
- Barrineau, Susanna, et al.
(författare)
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Emergentist education and the opportunities of radical futurity
- 2022
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 144, s. 103062-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Higher education has been criticised for its instrumental character, which constrains possibilities for meaningful change towards sustainability. Drawing on the concept of radical futurity, we develop a conception of education that we call "emergentist education". We integrate literature from futures studies, education for sustainable development, philosophy of education, and bring into dialogue experiences from three futures-facing educational contexts at a Swedish university. We identify three key areas to conceive of emergentist education and its value in practice: disciplinary and institutional norms, convening around anticipatory emotions, and deepening the paradox of sustainability as emergent through radical futurity. We apply a diffractive analysis through these key areas to demonstrate how a reorientation of education as emergentist might allow students and teachers to contest visions of futures. This work helps in approaching the liberation of education to allow young people to come together whole-heartedly around what matters to them.
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| 9. |
- Bendor, Roy, et al.
(författare)
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Looking backward to the future: : On past-facing approaches to futuring
- 2021
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 125
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While the past is present in all futuring activities it tends to remain implicit and has not received adequate attention by futures scholars and practitioners. In response, this conceptual paper offers a novel framework with which the past can be brought into futures studies in a structured and comprehensive way. We begin by providing a brief account of how the past already figures in futures studies as part of efforts to understand the lingering effects of the past on the future; as part of a drive for ontological pluralization; and as a way to augment more mainstream futuring exercises. We then introduce two past-facing approaches to futuring, recasting and pastcasting, and illustrate their symmetry with the more familiar future-facing approaches, forecasting and backcasting. The symmetry, we argue, is based on shared aims and a shared style of inquiry. We then compare the different approaches and illustrate the landscape of futuring as an interplay of two dimensions: the focus of the activity on outcomes or pathways, and the stakes involved in it.
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| 10. |
- Bergman, Ann, et al.
(författare)
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Truth claims and explanatory claims : An ontological typology of futures studies
- 2010
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 42:8, s. 857-865
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Classifications of futures research are usually based on epistemological differences, but we complete these with ontological considerations. The article presents a typology of forecasts, i.e. statements on future events or states. It has two dimensions, truth claim and explanatory claim; each dimension has two values, making the claim or not making the claim. The four outcomes are then: Forecasts which make both truth claims and explanatory claims (predictions); which make truth claims, but not explanatory claims (prognoses); which make explanatory claims, but not truth claims (science fiction); and which make neither truth claims nor explanatory claims (utopias or dystopias). We regard each outcome as an ideal type, against which forecasts can be measured. We illustrate the use of the typology by presenting an example of each outcome
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