Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.20200324(3).0004
P. Forte, Riel Miller, Tom Bowen, J. Vissers, R. Faubel, E. Pavi, Tomi Malmström
A Futures Literacy application to a major healthcare project is described. Funded under the EU FP7 framework, the 'Man-aged Outcomes' project modelled resource usage across four different medical conditions and linked this with patient health outcomes. A Futures Literacy approach was undertaken to explore scenarios for future care provision in 18 workshops, and five languages. Facilitator training, workshop preparation, delivery and outcomes are described. The process provided a consistent framework for generating relevant outputs from local care professionals and indicated potential operational process developments to improve patient outcomes.
{"title":"A futures literacy application in health care: The managed outcomes project case study","authors":"P. Forte, Riel Miller, Tom Bowen, J. Vissers, R. Faubel, E. Pavi, Tomi Malmström","doi":"10.6531/JFS.20200324(3).0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.20200324(3).0004","url":null,"abstract":"A Futures Literacy application to a major healthcare project is described. Funded under the EU FP7 framework, the 'Man-aged Outcomes' project modelled resource usage across four different medical conditions and linked this with patient health outcomes. A Futures Literacy approach was undertaken to explore scenarios for future care provision in 18 workshops, and five languages. Facilitator training, workshop preparation, delivery and outcomes are described. The process provided a consistent framework for generating relevant outputs from local care professionals and indicated potential operational process developments to improve patient outcomes.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"51-61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47996673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.202003_24(3).0008
Timothy M. Dolan
An extraordinary amount of science fiction (SF) carries significant content of a moralistic nature consistently reflecting concerns about social becoming nested within the context of the times the works were written (Blackford, 2017). As a rule it is perilous to lump an entire genre into any single orientation, but in the case of SF and ethics there are strong connections especially in the classic works familiar to the general public. It makes a lot of sense when one considers that ethics is much about consequences and SF is much about illuminating them. “Moral literature” is a term likely to set off associations with various scripturally based “just so” stories, often written for children as digestible lessons in the faith, or as with Aesop’s fables, intended to carry explicit principles of human relations. These tales were explicitly meant to justify existing conventions as well as highlight key social principles. The favored genres of this literature are fable and apologue through which the normative world is justified in contradistinction to parable (“It has been written, but I say unto you...”) and satire; which are the genres of subversion. Layered over this stratum of edification literature were the now archaic studies in character development that held popular attention in the 18 and through to the early 20 century. These were exemplified in the works of Charles Dickens, and in America through the Horatio Alger stories. These coincided with a strain of “muscular Christianity” that manifested itself in both the YMCA and Boy Scouts in response to the societal consequences of concentrating large numbers of young men in the manufacturing centers where drunkenness, gambling and prostitution were corroding civilization itself in the eyes of the churchmen of the day. These series relentlessly pressed the theme of triumph over adversity. Weakness of the flesh rigorously suppressed through sport was also a well-worn theme persisting well into more recent times as this author recalls arguments in favor of school athletics programs for males as a means to dampen sexual impulse. Thus this moralistic literature was much shaped as a response to industrialization and its resulting initial in-migration of young single men. These emphases on moral virtue would wax and wane as industrial urbanism began to mature and new mediums were introduced. A kind of dialectical struggle for hearts and minds would play out in the early 20 century with the rise of the novel. The novel itself as a literary form had a reputation for titillation in the eyes of the straightlaced, but its broad popularity determined that titillation might be okay if it was well written by, say, a D.H. Lawrence. In Europe surrealism and the explosive works of Sigmund Freud would mark the contradictory shadow side of imperial order, and rigid rationality that marked a wide swath of Western Europe from Victorian London to Vienna. Ultimately it would be World War I that would bring the biggest c
{"title":"Science Fiction as Moral Allegory","authors":"Timothy M. Dolan","doi":"10.6531/JFS.202003_24(3).0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202003_24(3).0008","url":null,"abstract":"An extraordinary amount of science fiction (SF) carries significant content of a moralistic nature consistently reflecting concerns about social becoming nested within the context of the times the works were written (Blackford, 2017). As a rule it is perilous to lump an entire genre into any single orientation, but in the case of SF and ethics there are strong connections especially in the classic works familiar to the general public. It makes a lot of sense when one considers that ethics is much about consequences and SF is much about illuminating them. “Moral literature” is a term likely to set off associations with various scripturally based “just so” stories, often written for children as digestible lessons in the faith, or as with Aesop’s fables, intended to carry explicit principles of human relations. These tales were explicitly meant to justify existing conventions as well as highlight key social principles. The favored genres of this literature are fable and apologue through which the normative world is justified in contradistinction to parable (“It has been written, but I say unto you...”) and satire; which are the genres of subversion. Layered over this stratum of edification literature were the now archaic studies in character development that held popular attention in the 18 and through to the early 20 century. These were exemplified in the works of Charles Dickens, and in America through the Horatio Alger stories. These coincided with a strain of “muscular Christianity” that manifested itself in both the YMCA and Boy Scouts in response to the societal consequences of concentrating large numbers of young men in the manufacturing centers where drunkenness, gambling and prostitution were corroding civilization itself in the eyes of the churchmen of the day. These series relentlessly pressed the theme of triumph over adversity. Weakness of the flesh rigorously suppressed through sport was also a well-worn theme persisting well into more recent times as this author recalls arguments in favor of school athletics programs for males as a means to dampen sexual impulse. Thus this moralistic literature was much shaped as a response to industrialization and its resulting initial in-migration of young single men. These emphases on moral virtue would wax and wane as industrial urbanism began to mature and new mediums were introduced. A kind of dialectical struggle for hearts and minds would play out in the early 20 century with the rise of the novel. The novel itself as a literary form had a reputation for titillation in the eyes of the straightlaced, but its broad popularity determined that titillation might be okay if it was well written by, say, a D.H. Lawrence. In Europe surrealism and the explosive works of Sigmund Freud would mark the contradictory shadow side of imperial order, and rigid rationality that marked a wide swath of Western Europe from Victorian London to Vienna. Ultimately it would be World War I that would bring the biggest c","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"105-112"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45837660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.202012_25(2).0002
D. Bengston
Future estrangement is a profound sense of alienation toward the future. It is the deep-seated feeling that the future is a hostile and bewildering world that we may not have a place in - or may not want to have a place in. This paper outlines numerous impending threats that are the main sources of future estrangement and discusses strategies to overcome this perilous attitude toward the future. Ultimately, reversing the spread of future estrangement will require both addressing its root causes and building resiliency at all levels and in all domains of society.
{"title":"Future estrangement: not having a place in the emerging future","authors":"D. Bengston","doi":"10.6531/JFS.202012_25(2).0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202012_25(2).0002","url":null,"abstract":"Future estrangement is a profound sense of alienation toward the future. It is the deep-seated feeling that the future is a hostile and bewildering world that we may not have a place in - or may not want to have a place in. This paper outlines numerous impending threats that are the main sources of future estrangement and discusses strategies to overcome this perilous attitude toward the future. Ultimately, reversing the spread of future estrangement will require both addressing its root causes and building resiliency at all levels and in all domains of society.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"3-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71327671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.201912_24(2).0003
Ricardo A Guthrie
The world of Wakanda, as depicted in the film Black Panther (2018), provided an opportunity for viewers to bask in the glorious scenes, heroic drama, Black feminist power, and guile of an African world bordering on the fantastic. Starving audiences seeking Black filmic culture eagerly settled for Wakandan fantasy - based on the filmmaker’s magnificent achievement to build a fanciful and engaging vision for Black viewers and comic-book aficionados alike. It was a significant relief to enjoy Black Panther, even with its errant vision of thuggish conflict by an anti-hero whose rationale for sharing Wakandan technology to save Africans in the diaspora made sense - though his violent demand for war-like resolution did not. It was also an unfortunate plot line to make a white CIA agent a hero, or to depict the United Nations as the platform for peacefully bringing Wakanda to light. But these are side issues to the main conceptual framework, and dilemma, presented by the film: What does a modern African nation look like, if it has not been created though colonialism? Can African-Diasporic art, culture, language, music and cinematography provide a foundation for envisioning a “Wakandan” world that is neither utopic nor dystopic? How do we redefine Afro-Diasporic possibility, existing outside of colonial, neocolonial and postcolonial imaginations? While addressing such issues, we should not belittle Black Panther’s global cinematic accomplishment, but instead seek to deploy Afrofuturist analytics to narrowly examine two questions: How does an imaginary realm of the African world - untouched by colonialism - affirm Black genius and futurity to enable current generations to de-program ourselves and combat anti-Black racism? And, how can Black speculative fiction re-fashion a de-colonial space beyond Wakanda, in the current nation-states and community places within which Afro-diasporic peoples struggle daily for sustenance, power, and joy? Using the complex array of Afrofuturist and global Pan-Africanist analyses provided by theorists such as Eshun (2003), Anderson and Jones (2015), Mudimbe (1988), and futurists such as Inayatullah (2008), Sardar (2009), and Gatune (2010, 2011), this essay examines how Wakanda exists within colonial spaces and how Black speculative fiction (as well as the Black Panther film itself) depend upon a de-colonial imagination for sustenance and legibility.
{"title":"Redefining the colonial: An Afrofuturist analysis of Wakanda and speculative fiction","authors":"Ricardo A Guthrie","doi":"10.6531/JFS.201912_24(2).0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.201912_24(2).0003","url":null,"abstract":"The world of Wakanda, as depicted in the film Black Panther (2018), provided an opportunity for viewers to bask in the glorious scenes, heroic drama, Black feminist power, and guile of an African world bordering on the fantastic. Starving audiences seeking Black filmic culture eagerly settled for Wakandan fantasy - based on the filmmaker’s magnificent achievement to build a fanciful and engaging vision for Black viewers and comic-book aficionados alike. It was a significant relief to enjoy Black Panther, even with its errant vision of thuggish conflict by an anti-hero whose rationale for sharing Wakandan technology to save Africans in the diaspora made sense - though his violent demand for war-like resolution did not. It was also an unfortunate plot line to make a white CIA agent a hero, or to depict the United Nations as the platform for peacefully bringing Wakanda to light. But these are side issues to the main conceptual framework, and dilemma, presented by the film: What does a modern African nation look like, if it has not been created though colonialism? Can African-Diasporic art, culture, language, music and cinematography provide a foundation for envisioning a “Wakandan” world that is neither utopic nor dystopic? How do we redefine Afro-Diasporic possibility, existing outside of colonial, neocolonial and postcolonial imaginations? While addressing such issues, we should not belittle Black Panther’s global cinematic accomplishment, but instead seek to deploy Afrofuturist analytics to narrowly examine two questions: How does an imaginary realm of the African world - untouched by colonialism - affirm Black genius and futurity to enable current generations to de-program ourselves and combat anti-Black racism? And, how can Black speculative fiction re-fashion a de-colonial space beyond Wakanda, in the current nation-states and community places within which Afro-diasporic peoples struggle daily for sustenance, power, and joy? Using the complex array of Afrofuturist and global Pan-Africanist analyses provided by theorists such as Eshun (2003), Anderson and Jones (2015), Mudimbe (1988), and futurists such as Inayatullah (2008), Sardar (2009), and Gatune (2010, 2011), this essay examines how Wakanda exists within colonial spaces and how Black speculative fiction (as well as the Black Panther film itself) depend upon a de-colonial imagination for sustenance and legibility.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"15-28"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42516574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-23DOI: 10.6531/JFS.201903_23(3).0012
D. Abdulla, Ahmed Ansari, Ece Canlı, M. Keshavarz, M. Kiem, P. Oliveira, Luiza Prado, T. Schultz
Much of the academic and professional discourse within the design disciplines over the last century has been bereft of a critical reflection on the politics of design practice, and on the politics of the artifacts, systems and practices that designerly activity produces. Our premise is that— notwithstanding important and valued exceptions—design theory, practice, and pedagogy as a whole are not geared towards delivering the kinds of knowledge and understanding that are adequate to addressing longstanding systemic issues of power. These issues are products of modernity and its ideologies, regimes, and institutions reiterating, producing and exerting continued colonial power upon the lives of oppressed, marginalised, and subaltern peoples in both the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world. This planet, shared and co- inhabited by a plurality of peoples, each inhabiting different worlds, each orienting themselves within and towards their environments in different ways, and with different civilisational histories, is being undermined by a globalised system of power that threatens to flatten and eradicate ontological and epistemological difference, rewriting histories and advance visions of a future for a privileged few at the expense of their human and nonhuman others.
{"title":"A Manifesto for Decolonising Design","authors":"D. Abdulla, Ahmed Ansari, Ece Canlı, M. Keshavarz, M. Kiem, P. Oliveira, Luiza Prado, T. Schultz","doi":"10.6531/JFS.201903_23(3).0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.201903_23(3).0012","url":null,"abstract":"Much of the academic and professional discourse within the design disciplines over the last century has been bereft of a critical reflection on the politics of design practice, and on the politics of the artifacts, systems and practices that designerly activity produces. Our premise is that— notwithstanding important and valued exceptions—design theory, practice, and pedagogy as a whole are not geared towards delivering the kinds of knowledge and understanding that are adequate to addressing longstanding systemic issues of power.\u0000\u0000These issues are products of modernity and its ideologies, regimes, and institutions reiterating, producing and exerting continued colonial power upon the lives of oppressed, marginalised, and subaltern peoples in both the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world. This planet, shared and co- inhabited by a plurality of peoples, each inhabiting different worlds, each orienting themselves within and towards their environments in different ways, and with different civilisational histories, is being undermined by a globalised system of power that threatens to flatten and eradicate ontological and epistemological difference, rewriting histories and advance visions of a future for a privileged few at the expense of their human and nonhuman others.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"129-132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41998781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.201909_24(1).0004
Simon Elias Bibri, J. Krogstie
In the early 1990s, the discourse on sustainable development produced the concept of sustainable urban forms that became, and continue to be, a hegemonic response to the challenges of sustainable development. However, such forms have been problematic, whether in theory or practice, and indeed are associated with a number of problems, issues, and challenges. This involves the question of how they should be monitored, understood, analyzed, planned, and even integrated so as to improve, advance, and maintain their contribution to sustainability. This brings us to the issue of sustainable cities and smart cities being extremely fragmented as landscapes and weakly connected as approaches, despite the proven role and untapped potential of advanced ICT, especially big data technology, for advancing sustainability under what is labeled “smart sustainable cities.” Essentially, there are multiple visions of such cities, and indeed multiple pathways to achieving them. With that in regard, this futures study aims to analyze, investigate, and develop a novel model for smart sustainable city planning and development using backcasting as a scholarly approach. It involves a series of papers of which this paper is the first, and which aims to report the outcomes of Step 1 and Step 2—an overview of a detailed trend analysis and a review of sustainable urban forms—by answering the guiding questions for each step. We argue that a deeper understanding between social, technological, and scientific solutions is required to achieve more sustainable urban forms. Visionary images of a long–term future can stimulate an accelerated movement towards achieving the long–term goals of sustainability. The proposed model is believed to be the first of its kind and thus has not been, to the best of one’s knowledge, produced, nor is it being currently investigated, elsewhere.
{"title":"Towards A Novel Model for Smart Sustainable City Planning and Development: A Scholarly Backcasting Approach","authors":"Simon Elias Bibri, J. Krogstie","doi":"10.6531/JFS.201909_24(1).0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.201909_24(1).0004","url":null,"abstract":"In the early 1990s, the discourse on sustainable development produced the concept of sustainable urban forms that became, and continue to be, a hegemonic response to the challenges of sustainable development. However, such forms have been problematic, whether in theory or practice, and indeed are associated with a number of problems, issues, and challenges. This involves the question of how they should be monitored, understood, analyzed, planned, and even integrated so as to improve, advance, and maintain their contribution to sustainability. This brings us to the issue of sustainable cities and smart cities being extremely fragmented as landscapes and weakly connected as approaches, despite the proven role and untapped potential of advanced ICT, especially big data technology, for advancing sustainability under what is labeled “smart sustainable cities.” Essentially, there are multiple visions of such cities, and indeed multiple pathways to achieving them. With that in regard, this futures study aims to analyze, investigate, and develop a novel model for smart sustainable city planning and development using backcasting as a scholarly approach. It involves a series of papers of which this paper is the first, and which aims to report the outcomes of Step 1 and Step 2—an overview of a detailed trend analysis and a review of sustainable urban forms—by answering the guiding questions for each step. We argue that a deeper understanding between social, technological, and scientific solutions is required to achieve more sustainable urban forms. Visionary images of a long–term future can stimulate an accelerated movement towards achieving the long–term goals of sustainability. The proposed model is believed to be the first of its kind and thus has not been, to the best of one’s knowledge, produced, nor is it being currently investigated, elsewhere.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71327633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.201903_23(3).0007
J. Auger, J. Hanna
Industrial design, for the most part, is about exploiting the potential of new technologies to create functional, usable and desirable products design is at the heart of future formation. Unfortunately, this process is mostly devoid of any critical or philosophical foundation. Some myths taught at design school: 1. Design is good. 2. Design makes people’s lives better. 3. Design solves problems.
{"title":"How the future happens","authors":"J. Auger, J. Hanna","doi":"10.6531/JFS.201903_23(3).0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.201903_23(3).0007","url":null,"abstract":"Industrial design, for the most part, is about exploiting the potential of new technologies to create functional, usable and desirable products design is at the heart of future formation. Unfortunately, this process is mostly devoid of any critical or philosophical foundation. Some myths taught at design school: 1. Design is good. 2. Design makes people’s lives better. 3. Design solves problems.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71327621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-12-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.201812_23(2).0004
Iris Pauw, J. Schee, T. Béneker, van der R. Vaart
In this paper, we report on students’ abilities to envision scenarios of urban futures after a lesson series based on futures education. The results on the critical and creative scenario thinking of geography students in three upper sec- ondary schools improved significantly between a pretest and posttest. However, embedding newly imagined ideas in the spatial structures of tomorrow’s cities turned out to be challenging for students. Although geographical knowledge and skills do seem to support students in scenario thinking, it appears to be a complex task to effectively combine knowledge and imagination in scenarios of urban futures.
{"title":"Students' Abilities to Envision Scenarios of Urban Futures","authors":"Iris Pauw, J. Schee, T. Béneker, van der R. Vaart","doi":"10.6531/JFS.201812_23(2).0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.201812_23(2).0004","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we report on students’ abilities to envision scenarios of urban futures after a lesson series based on futures education. The results on the critical and creative scenario thinking of geography students in three upper sec- ondary schools improved significantly between a pretest and posttest. However, embedding newly imagined ideas in the spatial structures of tomorrow’s cities turned out to be challenging for students. Although geographical knowledge and skills do seem to support students in scenario thinking, it appears to be a complex task to effectively combine knowledge and imagination in scenarios of urban futures.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"45-66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48355912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.201806.22(4).0003
Caroline Smith, Jane Watson
This article explores contentious issues that arise from unproblematised calls for STEM (the disciplines of Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology) to provide innovative solutions to two existential problems of the 21st century: employment and environmental sustainability. We situate STEM as a neoliberal construct within a hypermodernist techno-optimist future, a manifestation of Wilber’s "flatland". We argue that while STEM undoubtedly plays an important role into the future, rather than being taken at face value as an unexamined good, its taken-forgranted but contradictory role is naive and misplaced and must be subject to serious critique. We argue that in its current conceptualisation, STEM’s role is inherently unable to provide the sustainability of future employment in a knowledge-based economy. We question the enthusiastic promotion of STEM as key contributor to an environmentally sustainable future as we enter the epoch of the Anthropocene, and examine the role of STEM education, in contrast to Education for Sustainability (EfS). We conclude that STEM and STEM education need to include critical and futures perspectives in order to align more fully with a flourishing economic, social and environmental future.
{"title":"STEM: Silver bullet for a viable future or just more flatland?","authors":"Caroline Smith, Jane Watson","doi":"10.6531/JFS.201806.22(4).0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.201806.22(4).0003","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores contentious issues that arise from unproblematised calls for STEM (the disciplines of Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology) to provide innovative solutions to two existential problems of the 21st century: employment and environmental sustainability. We situate STEM as a neoliberal construct within a hypermodernist techno-optimist future, a manifestation of Wilber’s \"flatland\". We argue that while STEM undoubtedly plays an important role into the future, rather than being taken at face value as an unexamined good, its taken-forgranted but contradictory role is naive and misplaced and must be subject to serious critique. We argue that in its current conceptualisation, STEM’s role is inherently unable to provide the sustainability of future employment in a knowledge-based economy. We question the enthusiastic promotion of STEM as key contributor to an environmentally sustainable future as we enter the epoch of the Anthropocene, and examine the role of STEM education, in contrast to Education for Sustainability (EfS). We conclude that STEM and STEM education need to include critical and futures perspectives in order to align more fully with a flourishing economic, social and environmental future.","PeriodicalId":44849,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Futures Studies","volume":"35 1","pages":"25-44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71327568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-09-01DOI: 10.6531/JFS.2017.22(1).A19
D. L. Wright, D. Baker, L. Buys, Michael Cuthill, Severine Mayere, C. Susilawati
The futures of regional communities are a matter of worldwide concern. In Australia, given the rapidly changing nature of rural and regional communities, a futuring program was proposed to explore 'community development' scenarios guided by local stakeholder participation. The venue for our futuring research was the regional city of Toowoomba, in Queensland, Australia. Over the past decade, Toowoomba has reacted to significant change in response to local and global effects, such as the resource boom and shifts in agricultural production. As a consequence there are a number of social, economic and environmental impacts whose cumulative effect could threaten the city's future vitality. An inter-disciplinary research team co-developed a Futuring Tool-Box (FTB) incorporating a comprehensive range of acknowledged tools and methods. A futuring workshop was held to identify the futures issues specific to Toowoomba. Participants were professionals, CEOs and NGOs living in the Toowoomba region, identified as actively futures-aware. This paper focuses on their voices and the future scenarios they co-created, and concludes with a suite of follow-up strategies.
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