The Social Construction of Futures

We talk about futures thinking often but we rarely explore exactly how that thinking emerges. A social constructionist perspective helps.

Finding our Futures

The epistemological challenge of acquiring knowledge of futures in the present is that ‘the future’ does not exist in an objective sense. Futures exist only as our ideas, our images, and emerge in our conversations and explorations about what might happen.  Just how then do we engage with this space that our minds tell us is not real? How do we challenge the ontological logic that risks us becoming victims of our assumption walls? That keeps us trapped in our cognitive habits and heuristics.

Imagining possible futures is shaped by our worldviews and foresight capacities that influence whether we believe we can actually generate meaningful knowledge about futures – that is, whether we can use the future in the present. Worldviews are tacit, composed of beliefs, assumptions, and values that shape how we engage with both the present and our futures. And worldviews will define how we understand futures and the degree to which we are willing to engage in the open and more…