Futures Methods From Around The World
*Methods- We are very loosely defining what qualifies as a method as anything that can open the door to seeing a new angle or perspective- a new way of thinking, being, and doing (e.g. a process, principle, analogy, model, framework, or even alternative definitions to terms).
In what ways do you, your community, your culture think about something that challenges its current ‘mainstream’ narrative and, in doing so, allows for the opportunity to rethink our possibilities for our future?
We need your support in imagining different futures!
Call for Submissions
Given the critical crises of our current times, from climate change and war to our exhausted economic system, this project seeks to speak to those, who like us, are realizing how important it is for us to imagine boldly and with hope, particularly when things can feel so bleak at times.
This is a call to present and share ideas and methods* from around the world that can support us, individually and collectively, in thinking more broadly and radically about our shared futures as a society.
We seek to take an ‘all of society and nature’ approach to challenge the status quo and inspire new thinking and new hope about a wider range of future possibilities and pathways.
“Hope is empowerment,
Hope is a solution,
Hope is a game-changer.”
Cristina Mittermeier (biologist, conservationist, photographer, author)
What is the output of this call
We aim to establish a public resource that promotes the exploration of reimagining new possibilities in response to this call for papers, along with opportunities for public engagement through conferences, and other events for our contributors. We will work with contributors to develop and implement this in a non-exploitative and equitable manner that generates value for all stWe aim to establish a public resource that promotes the exploration of reimagining new possibilities in response to this call for papers, along with opportunities for public engagement through conferences, and other events for our contributors. We will work with contributors to develop and implement this in a non-exploitative and equitable manner that generates value for all stakeholders.akeholders.
Why are we organising this call to action now?
The dominant ways of thinking and paradigms in most fields tend to be based on non-indigenous Global North frames, and they do not adequately incorporate the contexts, knowledge, and perspectives of communities and non-dominant disciplines from around the world. This work is about shifting what and whose knowledge we value.
There is a growing recognition that if we want to even hope for different futures we need to first expand our aperture because we cannot afford to operate under these outdated and myopic paradigms any longer.
This project was born out of our searching for a living repository or collective of such thinking and ‘methods’ that could help us challenge these widespread assumptions, and not finding it.
What can ‘methods’ look like?
We take an expansive view of what ‘methods’ can be- from alternate definitions of terms, to analogies, principles, frameworks, stories, visual narratives etc. – really anything that helps us re-evaluate and expand our current thinking.
We believe there are two sources to the ‘methods’:
Examples of historical and new imaginaries that have inspired this project for us include:
- Defining kinship time versus linear time and the reframe this offers in viewing and engaging with the climate crisis.
- Historical: In Mali, the translation of poverty in the majority ethnic language, Bambara, being ‘the state of being without family’ vs the just someone with fewer resources. This reframes Western approaches to poverty alleviation work (reference: Emily Jacobi, Digital Democracy, approx 43:50 in the video).
- New imaginaries: The Lotus framework takes an anti-colonial and equity lens to guide a critical self-reflection for practitioners designing community engagement projects and offers alternative frames for thinking about this work (new imaginaries)
- New imaginaries: Storytelling as tool for inclusion and cultural knowledge in the Decolonizing Futures Initiative.
Please join us in sharing and contributing!
If you have responses to this provocation, we’re looking forward to hearing from you:
In what ways do you, your community, your culture think about something that challenges its current ‘mainstream’ narrative and, in doing so, allows for the opportunity to rethink our possibilities for our future?
You might think the call is really broad, even too broad, and you would be right in thinking this. Our boundary is about how radical and bold a reframe or rethinking your submission offers us about the very thing you have chosen to share.
Join us in this endeavour as an active research collaborator or by submitting an expression of interest or a methodology by 1 May. We appreciate receiving your expressions of interest as soon as possible, so we can follow-up with you as needed.
Thank you for your support!
If you’d you’re interested in be involved:
- As a co-researcher in this project (let’s discuss what this might look like!)
- As a contributor sharing a method
- Sharing about someone who you think we should get in touch with (if sharing direct contract information to please ask for their consent first!)
- Interested in this research, and wants to be amongst the first to be contacted once we have things to share publicly
- As a potential funder of this work (Thank you!)
- Or just have any questions
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