Anticipating futures: Understanding the fundamental importance of narratives through an integrative interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

Businesses, planners and policy makers must make decisions that influence a future about which they have incomplete knowledge. Whilst knowing the future may be illusive, the capacity to adapt as required, is desirable for both organisations and society. We examine what different perspectives can offer, considering how empirical-analytical (e.g., modelling, data), narrative-experiential (e.g., fiction, history, gaming), and socio-technological (e.g., AI, social media) approaches contribute to anticipating futures. From this overview we detect a fundamental role of narrative as a framing device, and we examine various aspects of its inescapable value no matter what the perspective. We assert that whilst narratives are important to the success of planning activities and to their subsequent uptake and utility, they are no guarantee of success, serving only to animate the body of experience. We identify that a good narrative starts an evidence-based process which is dynamic and evolves as others engage with it; little is achieved without engagement. Narratives can shift focus or intention, or become hijacked, and the evolving narrative becomes an emergent property of a complex system with no one person or group controlling the process. We argue that an understanding of the essential role of narrative is critical in considering futures, and in achieving desirable outcomes. To this end we identify narratives as complex dynamic systems that involve multiple actors and feedback loops. A better understanding of the drivers of such dynamics is needed as a precursor to developing techniques to limit the potential for narrative distortion or derailing.