scholarly journals Postnormal Praxis Putting Postnormal Concepts to Work

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-100
Author(s):  
Liam Mayo ◽  
Jordi Serra del Pino ◽  
Christopher Jones
Keyword(s):  
Scenario Planning ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
Workshop Facilitation

This article provides an overview of how the authors have brought together the three tomorrows of postnormal times, as an approach to thinking about the future, and scenario planning, a widespread futures method, in a way that has garnered interesting and insightful outcomes. Here, we reflect on years of workshop facilitation with the Centre for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies, amongst other places, where we have been working with communities and organisations to develop postnormal times theoretically.

The future of governance in Iran

foresight ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Asghar Pourezzat ◽  
Mohammad Hoseini Moghadam ◽  
Maryam Sani Ejlal ◽  
Ghazaleh Taheriattar
Keyword(s):  
Driving Forces ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Scenario Planning ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Alternative Futures ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
International Trends ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Government

Purpose Through an examination of macro-historical studies on the governance of Iran, the purpose of this study is to identify the most significant and important events and trends in the rise and fall of Iranian governments and introduce alternative futures in a range of possible, plausible and preferable forms of future governance. To carry out a foresight study of alternative futures of Iranian governance, the authors used futures studies, based on the detection of the most critical driving forces, which are also the most important uncertainties. Futures studies as an interdisciplinary field of study help to identify the events and trends that affect political change and offer scenarios of four alternative futures for the governance of Iran: Smart and Stable Government, Authoritarian Development-oriented Government, Irrational Government and Irrational Breakable Government. The authors believe that Iran’s endeavors to promote democracy, taking the changing international trends into account, make a more trustworthy future for Iran both possible plausible. Design/methodology/approach Based on macro-history approach and by using “shared history”, future triangle and then scenario planning, the future of Governance in Iran has been analyzed. Findings Whenever the government has distanced itself from the public and has neglected the trend of international change, it has been faced with a period of collapse and annihilation. And whenever these two important factors are understood, the result is a trend of development and growth. Therefore, the most favored image of Iran’s future relies on the maintenance and promotion of public participation and on increasing attention to the sustainable realities of international relations. Originality/value The complexities of events and trends affecting the rise and fall of previous governments of Iran make it necessary to use an interdisciplinary approach to understand the events that have emerged or are emerging in its governance. In this study, from futures studies point of view, transformation of governance has been studied.

The future persona: a futures method to let your scenarios come to life

foresight ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Fergnani
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Scenario Planning ◽  
User Centered Design ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Future Scenario ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Creation Process ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to formally introduce the future persona, a futures method to let scenarios come to life. A future persona is a scenario-specific fictional individual living in the future scenario (s)he is meant to depict. The paper provides a formal, systematic and clear step-by-step guide on how to create engaging and effective future personas after a scenario planning exercise. Design/methodology/approach After having introduced the future persona method, tracing it back to the customer persona method in user centered design (UCD) and differentiating it from previous uses of futures characters in the futures studies literature and in other domains, an example of the creation process of four future personas based on four scenario archetypes of the futures of work is provided, illustrated with pictures and discussed. Findings Future personas, with their narratives and graphical illustrations, are found to be particularly useful to convey scenarios to a target audience. Practical implications Futures personas can be used in a scenario planning exercise to increase the clarity of scenarios in the mind of scenario planners and to let scenarios be known inside an organization. Originality/value Future personas can substantially enrich scenarios, increasing their liveliness, playfulness and empathy.

The Futurists. Experts in World Futures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Way

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.

scholarly journals Hope against hope: COVID-19 and the space for political imagination

2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110045
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gross
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Devised Theatre ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
The Future

COVID-19 has loosened neoliberalism’s hegemonic grip on the future. Amid the enormous suffering experienced internationally, there is much discussion of how to ‘Build Back Better’, and hope for a more caring, just and sustainable world. But competing futures are being imagined and planned. Hope is never politically neutral, and the content of collective hope is a key site of political struggle. This is partly a question of space: who has the literal and discursive space in which to develop visions of the future? The following article considers the role that cultural studies can play in this struggle. ‘Conjunctural analysis’ has a key task, making visible the competing futures contained within the present. But cultural studies should go further: combining conjunctural analysis with methods drawn from a range of scholarly and activist traditions – including critical pedagogy, devised theatre and the interdisciplinary field of futures studies – that deliberately create spaces for imagining new futures.

The Image Today: Field-Notes on the Interdisciplinary Use of the Visioning Workshop

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Cingel Bodinet
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Full Bloom ◽  
The Future ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Images Of The Future

Fred Polak wrote in his classic text, The Image of The Future: The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. As long as the society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive. This is, arguably, one of the most important tenets of Futures Studies as an academic discipline. This essay explores the importance and practice of imbuing our communities (especially our youth) with the ability to create positive future images; assisting them in the recognition of their own agency in the creation of preferred futures; and encouraging them to become active participants in the creation of positive personal and communal futures today.

The future of the circular economy and the circular economy of the future

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-546
Author(s):  
Ricardo Weigend Rodríguez ◽  
Francesco Pomponi ◽  
Ken Webster ◽  
Bernardino D'Amico
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Alternative Futures ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Economic Paradigm ◽  
The Future ◽  
Bibliometric Review ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeThe circular economy (CE) has gained momentum in recent years as a new economic paradigm. While the CE sets a very defined vision for a sustainable future, it still operates in the present. As such, existing guidance on and research into the CE lack a necessary understanding of how to go from the present to the future. What if the future is different from what the CE expects? The CE cannot answer this question adequately and therefore is not capable of developing this understanding alone. To address this shortcoming, this paper proposes futures studies (FS) as a complementary discipline because it offers exactly what CE lacks: methods to explore alternative futures.Design/methodology/approachTo understand the level of interdisciplinary research in the built environment between CE and FS, a systematic literature review is carried out using a bibliometric review and a snowballing technique. This manuscript reviews seminal literature in both fields and their theoretical background.FindingsThis paper demonstrates the lack of collaboration between CE and FS and highlights a systemic failure within CE, which is to consider the future as unknowable. It further provides an initial understanding of where the synergy sits, recommendations on where to start and introduces some of the FS chief methods that could be used by CE in the built environment.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ bibliometric review and snowballing approach might have missed out on some literature that still falls within the scope. Such limitations are due, on one hand, to the authors’ bibliometric review approach by selecting publications based on matching keywords. On the other hand, the snowballing approach is affected by the authors’ subjective judgements on which of the publications are worth to explore based mainly just on the title and abstract of the paper.Practical implicationsThe inclusion of Futures Studies will allow a stronger focus on approaching possible futures to be integrated overtly into existing work, research and action within the CE community.Social implicationsIt is more reasonable to expect that by cooperatively creating and implementing constructed futures with FS methods and CE principles, a better future for the built environment be reached. This is why it is so relevant for humanity that these two communities start to interact as soon as possible and maintain and open and productive collaboration in transitioning towards a sustainable society.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first of its kind by considering FS into the CE debate.

scholarly journals Innovative scenario planning of petrochemical enterprises in the Iranian community

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-480
Author(s):  
Babak Ziyae ◽  
Rosnani Jusoh ◽  
Hamidreza Madadian
Keyword(s):  
Petrochemical Industry ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Dynamic Capabilities ◽  
Scenario Planning ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Interpretive Structural Modeling ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Significant Attention ◽  
Shed Light

Purpose Research studies on futures studies have recently gained significant attention to create a desirable future based on the environmental change. Futures studies follow discovery, invention, presentation, test and evolution of possible, feasible and desirable futures. The purpose of this study is to examine some important aspects of the relationship between futures studies and planning and to present a model where futures scenarios have been developed as an integral part of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through the lens of dynamic capabilities theory and creative system theory. Design/methodology/approach Based on interpretive structural modeling and Delphi technique, the most important trends, proponents and uncertainties of the future of 10 Iranian petrochemical SMEs is identified and related innovative scenarios are presented. Findings The findings show four scenarios on the petrochemical industry including attracting investment, the presence of the private sector, attracting people's capital and sustainable development of the petrochemical industry. Originality/value The paper undertakes a first of its kind cross-disciplinary conceptual analysis to design Innovative Scenario Planning for SMEs. Despite the importance of scenario planning in SMEs, theories for understanding the nexus of entrepreneurial future studies remain underdeveloped. Therefore, there is still a theoretical gap and lack of research; hence, the current study tries to shed light on the topic and fill the gap in the entrepreneurship literature.

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