FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-21DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103456
Sophia Hatzisavvidou
{"title":"Envisioning ecopolitical futures: Reading climate fiction as political theory","authors":"Sophia Hatzisavvidou","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103456","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103456","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Scholarship on how speculative knowledges can contribute to envisioning sustainable futures is thriving. There is less attention to the specific ways in which political theory as speculative knowledge is relevant to these scholarly discussions. This article fosters this link by suggesting reading climate fiction as political theory. The article follows a four-step analysis. First, it clarifies the importance of pluralising and decolonising the knowledges through which climate change is engaged politically. Second, it introduces the concept of <em>ecopolitical imaginary</em> to capture collective visions for sustainable futures, showing the relevance of the theorising endeavour. Third, it elucidates the idea that placing political theory and climate fiction in dialogue can help envisage alternative ecopolitical imaginaries for future world ordering. Finally, it reads Robinson’s <em>Ministry for the Future</em> as an experiment in political thinking: an ecopolitical imaginary that helps to think through the challenges involved in countering the colonial logic of global climate governance and the Eurocentric universalism underpinning it. The overarching argument is that reading climate fiction as political theory offers insight into envisioning just sustainable futures.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142097215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-17DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103458
Vinícius Juliani Pereira, Tom Hargreaves
{"title":"Are you thinking what I’m thinking? The role of professionals’ imaginaries in the development of smart home technologies","authors":"Vinícius Juliani Pereira, Tom Hargreaves","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103458","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103458","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article draws on a co-design workshop with professionals working in the field of smart energy in the UK, to explore their imaginaries of smart homes and how these are (in)formed by their everyday ‘lay’ experiences. Smart home technologies (SHTs) are fundamentally embedded in future visions of energy transitions as they are expected to support actions to tackle climate change. Nevertheless, literature and adoption rates reveal an apparent gap between householders’ needs, expectations, and uses of SHTs, and how professional designers and developers view the same technology. Previous studies on SHTs imaginaries coming from industry and experts have focused on how users are represented in institutional visions, however, they routinely neglect the individual subjectivities of professionals producing such representations. The article presents three core results on the role of SHTs in digital energy futures: (1) it generates visual and textual conceptualizations of professionals’ imaginaries around smart domestic environments; (2) it identifies empirical insights on the formative role of professionals’ personal imaginaries for smart energy transitions; and (3) it calls for an alternative and more reflexive co-design practice to envision a fairer and more inclusive energy future.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001411/pdfft?md5=2602ffd13e8db279ec288122132c179b&pid=1-s2.0-S0016328724001411-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142040133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-17DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103457
Gaston Meskens
{"title":"The ethical motivation for post-normal science","authors":"Gaston Meskens","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103457","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103457","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper focuses on the concept of post-normal science, originally proposed by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, as an advanced method of knowledge generation for policy, and reflects on the ethical motivations for both its theoretical meaning and its practical realisation. In order to put the reflection on the why and how of post-normal science in a broader contemporary and future-oriented context, I will first elaborate on what I call ‘the politics of hypothesis’ and argue that the fundamental challenge for science that aims to advice policy today is not the problem of strategic manipulation of scientific advice by politics, civil society or the market, but rather the problem of dealing with the lack of evidence in situations where politics, civil society or the market ‘need’ that evidence to (urgently) inform, criticise or justify specific actions or practices. Confronted with the need to deal with incomplete and speculative knowledge, in many cases, scientific hypotheses have become the ‘end products’ of science themselves, and society has no other choice than to deal with them in a responsible way. The challenge of science in these cases is therefore not any longer the production of convincing proofs, it is the construction of credible hypotheses. Against this backdrop, a second part will recall how the normative motivation for post-normal science was originally worked out by Funtowicz and Ravetz. I will re-emphasize why and how the argumentation of Funtowicz and Ravetz in favour of the democratisation of science and the opening up of the dialogue to include opinions, beliefs and lay knowledge of ‘non-experts’ is ethical. Consequently, the third part proposes some paths for further ethical reflection with regard to the value and meaning of post-normal science in the ‘post-normal age’. I will briefly elaborate on the concept of transdisciplinarity, the idea of ‘co-creation’ of complexity, the concept of holism and the idea of the unavoidable moral authority of the present generation in intergenerational ethics. The reason is that each of these explorations is at the same time and in its own way an invitation to reflect on who we are as humanity, and on how we can possibly make sense of things for the better. I hope to make clear not only how these concepts and ideas may inspire the ethics of post-normal science, but also that they should become topic of concern in post-normal science dialogues themselves. Finally, in conclusion, I will situate the original ethical motivation for post-normal science in a broader perspective on responsible knowledge generation ‘in face of’ the complexity of complex problems and argue that the overall ethical motivation for postnormal science is to enable an emancipatory and (respectfully) confrontational dialogue and not to come to a full understanding of the complexity of a complex problem or to ‘proof’ specific hypotheses. I will consequently suggest that, responding to the ‘ethical appeal’ of com","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142075830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-14DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103455
Simon P. Meisch
{"title":"Extended peer communities: Creating good and fair knowledges","authors":"Simon P. Meisch","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103455","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103455","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This conceptual paper reconstructs an implicit ethical claim of post-normal science, namely that knowledge produced in extended peer communities (EPCs) is both epistemically better <em>and</em> fairer. Post-normal science introduced EPCs to operationalise better quality knowledge for decision-making in conditions when facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent. In such contexts, traditional forms of quality assurance in science are bound to fail and even risk becoming the source of harm to people, their social and natural environment. Consequently, the community of peers assessing the quality of knowledge needs to be broadened to include a plurality of perspectives and epistemic communities. To date, post-normal scholarship has focused primarily on the epistemological side of EPCs. Building on this, this paper addresses the ethical side of EPCs. In doing so, it aims to make explicit a claim that has always been at the heart of post-normal scholarship, namely that the knowledge produced in EPCs is also more just. In doing so, the paper builds on the literature on epistemic (in)justice and in particular on work done by Kristie Dotson.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001381/pdfft?md5=bd93c25f112334cf8ce08f498dbc997a&pid=1-s2.0-S0016328724001381-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141997840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-08DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103454
Jong-Seok KIM , Kieron Flanagan
{"title":"The use of foresight to anticipate and prioritise innovation system failures: The case of machine learning in broadcasting in South Korea","authors":"Jong-Seok KIM , Kieron Flanagan","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103454","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103454","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article reports on a study applying foresight methods to explore and anticipate innovation system failures in relation to a particular case sector, that of broadcasting in South Korea. Although previous studies of system failures have contributed to an in-depth understanding of innovation system as an analytical concept and provided the base of policy intervention, they have failed to capture different degrees of system failures and their changes in the process of sectoral transformation. Through the application of a sectoral innovation system foresight approach to the broadcasting sector in South Korea’s encounters with artificial intelligence (AI), a series of current and future priorities among nine system failures are identified. The shift of nine system failure priorities between current and five-year time points is captured: the highest priority of system failures moves from directionality failures to market structure failures. By applying a sectoral innovation system foresight approach, we advance theory on system failures and innovation systems. We show that the use of sectoral innovation system foresight approaches can productively be applied to the understanding of current and potential system failures.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142020664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103442
Jasmine E. Livingston , Terese Thoni , Silke Beck
{"title":"Making warming worlds: Future making between climate politics and science – The case of the Structured Expert Dialogue","authors":"Jasmine E. Livingston , Terese Thoni , Silke Beck","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103442","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103442","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Long-Term Global Goal (LTGG) is the focal point for addressing future climate change. This paper explores a specific institutional context: the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Set up as a platform for interaction between experts and UN negotiators, the SED is a site where scientific information about the LTGG and net-zero was translated into actionable targets for policymaking. We identify different modes of anticipation in the SED - as scientific, lived future, and ethical/political - and explore how they emerged and played out. We ask how these different modes of anticipation produce a particular vision of a desirable future and legitimise ways of governing future climate change. We observe that the scientific and technical mode of anticipation is dominant and has shaped the definition of the LTGG, focussing on numerical targets and side-lining geopolitical and distributive consequences. We also see the science-based framing being re-politicised and challenged, and discuss how capacities to get a voice in the SED were unequally distributed. Based on our findings, we suggest that care is needed to design spaces in order to consider ethical and political consequences of the LTGG and rethink modes of participation and representation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001253/pdfft?md5=bf93dac2d648a1ef7a2d0f577e06d49b&pid=1-s2.0-S0016328724001253-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141935307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-03DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103441
Lauren M. Lambert , Cynthia Selin , Tom Chermack
{"title":"Futures empathy for foresight research and practice","authors":"Lauren M. Lambert , Cynthia Selin , Tom Chermack","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103441","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103441","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Foresight methods help us to think about the future and overcome a bias toward short-term thinking in decision making. However, many approaches to investigating the future tend to leave implicit how individuals involved in the interventions relate to the present and to the future in practice and over time. To address this gap, our study highlights the affordances of two methodologies —Scenario Planning and Future Design. In a pilot study combining these methods, we report the results of the novel hybridized approach applied in strategic planning workshops across four corporations. Initial reflections and learnings from the pilot case study and literature review helps to build understandings of the practical and theoretical workings of the methodological innovation. By investigating this combination of foresight methodologies, this research opens up new ways for thinking about futuring and proposes a theory of Futures Empathy. Futures Empathy harnesses a person’s capacity for empathy in a novel way by applying it toward a future context. It consists of an iterative double looping process between self and a not yet existent future. Through imagination and reflection, foresight methods that build Futures Empathy can enhance personal connection and integration with a longer time horizon, thus overcoming presentism. By proposing a theory of Futures Empathy, we hope to contribute to better present and future relating in practice and over time across a multitude of foresight interventions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141993292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-03DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103453
Maarten Renkema , Aizhan Tursunbayeva
{"title":"The future of work of academics in the age of Artificial Intelligence: State-of-the-art and a research roadmap","authors":"Maarten Renkema , Aizhan Tursunbayeva","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103453","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103453","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Future of Work (FoW) has garnered significant attention among scholars and practitioners, with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) playing an important role in shaping this discourse. Despite the common perception that intelligent machines pose a threat to workers in routine roles, AI technologies are increasingly being utilized for advanced tasks carried out by knowledge workers. Drawing on state-of-the-art research and real-life examples we develop an integrated framework to explore the future of academic work. Our focus is on academics, an essential yet under-researched group of knowledge workers, and we discuss their work in relation to AI across space, time, and task dimensions. Our analysis reveals that the usage of AI technologies can have implications for the research, teaching, and service activities of academics and thereby also for the creation, acquisition, dissemination, and application of knowledge. Based on our framework we develop scenarios and propose a future research roadmap.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001368/pdfft?md5=c16f0fd5f4929ac6aa9a57e57b1c9b52&pid=1-s2.0-S0016328724001368-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141935308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-08-02DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103446
Elena Rovenskaya , Nikita Strelkovskii , Dmitry Erokhin , Leena Ilmola-Sheppard
{"title":"Future Scenarios of Commercial Freight Shipping in the Euro-Asian Arctic","authors":"Elena Rovenskaya , Nikita Strelkovskii , Dmitry Erokhin , Leena Ilmola-Sheppard","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103446","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103446","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As climate warms and modern technologies advance, the Artic waters may offer new opportunities for shipping, notably in the Euro-Asian Arctic. This paper presents five alternative scenarios for commercial destination and transit shipping in the region until 2050. Using a pluralistic backcasting approach to foresight, these scenarios were co-created by the authors of this paper together with thirteen experts in relevant fields from seven different countries. The scenario-building exercise integrated global and regional factors and demonstrated that the future of commercial shipping in the Arctic is subject to vast uncertainties in global politics and global development trajectory alongside the sea ice conditions and technological progress. While the current volumes of commercial shipping in the Euro-Asian Arctic are insignificant, its future will largely depend on the development of these factors and how they will interface with each other. Plausible futures of commercial shipping in the region range from extensive international transit shipping through the Northern Sea Route to restricted shipping by vessels with Arctic flags only or even no shipping, to shipping over the transpolar route. The scenarios presented here can be used to inform national policymaking as well as to support strategic decision-making within corporate entities operating in related industries.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001290/pdfft?md5=e896e039ec6077db5c5de896f35aa372&pid=1-s2.0-S0016328724001290-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141935309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
FuturesPub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2024.103443
Mattia Pozzebon
{"title":"Animal welfare issues in space settlement expeditions","authors":"Mattia Pozzebon","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103443","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103443","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The ongoing debate on space bioethics has thus far focused primarily on issues pertaining to human beings. However, in the existing literature there is a shortage of articles raising the issue of whether animals can be used for space settlement expeditions. Consequently, the aim of this article is to present some initial considerations regarding the ethics of using animals for this particular purpose. Specifically, four potential reasons for involving animals have been put forth. These can be categorised as follows: (1) to use animals as a food resource; (2) to use animals for research purposes; (3) to use animals for company purposes; and (4) to provide new habitats for those animals whose ecosystems on Earth are endangered. Within the afore-mentioned space bioethics debate, the possibility of genetically enhancing human beings has been a topic of considerable discussion. For this reason, the article also addresses the ethical implications of genetically enhancing the animals used in space expeditions. A Welfarist approach has been adopted to determine which uses of animals are ethically permissible and which are not, with the understanding that any use that compromises the animal’s ability to lead a good life is unacceptable. Accordingly, mere survival is not ethically relevant.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001277/pdfft?md5=a223442a786ef27c0f922d8b65c95a90&pid=1-s2.0-S0016328724001277-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141935311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}