Academic Resources.

Blass, E. (2003). Researching the future: method or madness? Futures, 35(10), 1041-1054.

Blass (2003) explores the possible and emerging methodologies of Future Studies at the time of writing. Critique exists within the literature regarding the methodological ‘soundness’ of Future Studies, with concerns raised around consistency and rigorousness. However, this article claims that methodologies within Future Studies are newly evolving and that no single approach would ever be adequate in studying and understanding possible futures.
One key critique of this article is the claim to Future Studies being a ‘new’ discipline. Understandings and conceptions of the future have been existent within non-Western world views and institutions, but this article makes no recognition of this, following in potentially problematic footsteps of a historically exclusionary discipline.

Bussey, M. (2002). From change to progress: critical spirituality and the futures of futures studies. Futures, 34(3-4), 303-315.

Bussey (2002) explores, and argues, within their piece, the cruciality of critical spirituality for transformative academia  within Future Studies as a discipline. This argument is premised on the fact that Western assumptions around change and progress in a futural sphere largely ignores the spiritual dimension of human experience. This piece calls for the shift away from Western normative approaches, arguably being a strand of Critical Futures Studies (CFS). This draws parallels with the growing mediums employed within participatory futures and CFS, such as art, poetry, photography and interactive technologies, to engage with affect and deeper consciousness in imagining and discussing the multiplicities of futures amongst the public. 

Davies, S. R., Selin, C., Gano, G., & Pereira, Â. G. (2013). Finding futures: A spatio-visual experiment in participatory engagement. Leonardo, 46(1), 76-77.

This short analytical article discusses the spatio-visual experiment in participatory engagement undertaken by the Finding Futures Project in Lisbon, 2011. This is a key example of participatory public engagement that emerges when utilising CFS. The experiment involved a group of individuals walking a mapped pathway of along river Tejo, taking photos of areas that felt like important embodiments of past, present and/or the future of the city. These were uploaded to Flickr and then captioned with memories or associations individuals had with the photos. A public installation interactive instalment was established, becoming a collectively emotive and discursive activity. This form of participatory engagement inherently opens up the ‘future’ and the diverse imaginaries that exist and challenges the taken-for-granted notion of what the future of Lisbon might be. 

Fernández Güell, J. M., & López, J. G. (2016). Cities futures. A critical assessment of how future studies are applied to cities. foresight, 18(5), 454-468.

This paper critically analyses the use of foresight tools for cities within urban planning and academia. Through the analysis of 20 case studies of foresight use in urban planning, it becomes clear the weaknesses of traditional approaches and methodologies of Future Studies. This naturally calls for a regenerated creative and critical approach to future imaginaries, such as Critical Future Studies. It’s main findings were that foresight tools and traditional urban planning approaches lacked the ability to engage with the inherent complexities, diversities and unpredictabilities that exist within cities. Concluding the article are recommendations for approaches to city futures that are multi-disciplinary, integrative and creative in public participation and engagement. 

Godhe, M., & Goode, L. (2017). Beyond Capitalist Realism-Why We Need Critical Future Studies. Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research, 9(1). 

This article makes a call for a regeneration of future thinking within the public sphere, underpinned by the sub-discipline of Critical Future Studies. Beyond Capitalist Realism – Why We Need Critical Future Studies (2017) is a piece that purposefully grounds itself in the rejection of value-neutrality, as it must embrace an inclusive and multidisciplinary ethico-political ethos. The piece details key characteristics of the discipline, making very clear the diverse, nuanced and multiple potentials of the discipline in how it approaches future studies. A defining factor of CFS is the rejection of taken for granted or ‘common-sense’ norms and knowledge production. Overall, the article makes clear the need for CFS and it’s broad methodology in both the political and physical climate we live within today.

Godhe, M., & Goode, L. (2018). Critical Future Studies-A thematic Introduction. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 10(2), 151-162.

This introductory piece on Critical Futures Studies details three key sections to provide well-informed foundations for understanding the emergent sub-discipline. CFS has emerged to challenge and interrogate the power dynamics in how futures are discussed and imagined across different sectors of society. It is a multidisciplinary area of thought, with diverse objects of analysis. It makes the ethical commitment to opening up the ‘future’ space for contestations, multiple imaginaries and world views. It is committed to bridging the gap between academia and public action. 

Hideg, É. (2002). Implications of two new paradigms for futures studies. Futures, 34(3-4), 283-294.

Implications of Two New Paradigms for Future Studies by Hideg (2002) explores two emergent areas of thought within the Future Studies discipline; evolutionary and critical future studies. The article details the defining features of both, and how they differ from the umbrella discipline. Evolutionary studies, is premised on the assumption that futures are open, and both defined and undefined, being populated by human activity. Evolutionary futures, argues that Future Studies must embrace the complexities of cultural-social evolution of humans moving into the future. Critical futures studies problematises the notions of ‘future’ that is used within Future Studies and it’s methodologies, specifically taken-for-granted assumptions and future predictions or forecasting. This field of thought looks to critical analyse the future imaginaries and permeations of past, present and future that exist in the here now.

Inayatullah, S. (2013). Futures studies: theories and methods. There’s a future: Visions for a Better World, BBVA, Madrid, 36-66.

Inayatullah’s informative piece Future Studies: Theories and Methods (2013) explores what future studies involves and where the discipline has emerged from, followed by some of its defining theoretical and conceptual frameworks. It makes clear the shift the discipline has undertaken following post-structuralism, away from prediction and further into domains of mapping the multiplicities of futural imaginaries and alternatives. Four theoretical frameworks are detailed within the article; predictive, interpretive, critical and participatory. The Six Pillars model developed by Inayatullah is then explored in how it enables the facilitation of future imaginaries, whether they be contested, conflicting or cooperative. Throughout, Inayatullah (2013) has woven comparisons of Future Studies to Future Planning, illustrating the former’s encouraging foundations of open endedness and radical possibilities, revealing the existing constraints within the latter. Overall, this objective piece is useful in its detail of the discipline of Future Studies and its theoretical and conceptual under-pinnings.

Reports.

Smith, L., & Peach, K. (2019). Our Futures: By the people, for the people. Nesta. 

With current issues facing the globe, the future is highly uncertain. Governments are mostly backing away from making hard choices about the future, such as climate change mitigation, and are failing to engage the public in participatory, bottom-up and democratic future building and imaginaries. This Nesta report clearly lays out methods and approaches to achieve this, and create multiple solutions to looming wicked problems.

At the moment the realm of future thinking and decision making is dominated by ‘experts’, those of the scientific, technological and corporate world which disproportionately excludes indigenous and other marginalised groups. This is problematic, inefficient and unproductive and facilitating future imaginaries and sustainable futuristic visions. This balance must be addressed through new approaches of engaging citizens in shaping the futures they want. There are five key roles that participatory futures play in decision-making processes; mapping horizons, creating purpose, charting pathways, acting together and testing ideas.

2050 Scenarios – Four Plausible Futures.

The report explores four forecasted outcomes in the Climate Crisis; Humans Inc, Extinction Express, Greentocracy, and Post Anthropocene. The report aims to inform decisions, design and planning. 

Media Resources.

Decolonising Utopia’s – A Resource List on Utopia Acts. 

This platform is very useful as it provides links to resources on decolonisation and what the decolonisation of futurities looks like. 

The Captured City – Jathan Sadowske, 2019. 

This article explores how the ‘smart city’ makes infrastructure and surveillance the same thing, prying open what urban futures may look like.