Imagining the Future for Transformation

Course goals

All around us we hear that we desperately need to ‘transform’ current systems and imagine alternative futures. While ‘the future’ by definition does not exist yet, our expectations about what the future can or should look like profoundly shape our actions in the present. ‘Imagining the future for transformation’ provides an overview of theories and methodologies that question how diverse groups of actors imagine the future to foster, oppose, or reorient processes of societal transformation – a process we call ‘futuring’. This course aims to expand your critical capacity to question and challenge the politics and dynamics that commonly narrow our imagination of possible futures and reinforce the status quo, alongside fostering your creative capacity to enable diverse groups to reimagine and enact more just and sustainable futures.

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Recognize and describe theories that explain how historical and present approaches to imagining the future may enable or constrain possible futures.
• Apply relevant theories, concepts and frameworks to characterize and critically reflect upon existing approaches that societal groups take to engender transformation in diverse geographies around the world.
• Compare a wide spectrum of approaches to futuring and evaluate their advantages/risks, and possible implications for societal processes of decision-making, justice and sustainability.
• Collaboratively design and evaluate a transdisciplinary process aimed at helping different societal groups understand and navigate different ideas of possible futures, to more collectively respond to growing social-ecological crises.

Content

We often move through life with our backs to the future - so preoccupied with troubles of the past or immediacy of the present, that we struggle to imagine how things could be otherwise. There is a clear need to collectively reorient towards the future. Yet, we typically lack the concepts and methodologies to convincingly challenge the status quo of the present whilst simultaneously opening up our collective imagination to radically different possible futures and pathways for action.

In the elective ‘Imagining the future for transformation’ – offered by the Urban Futures Studio – you will learn how to become both an archeologist and co-designer of the future. An archaeologist in the sense of uncovering the politics and dynamics that have narrowed what futures are seen as possible, or even plausible. A co-designer through your collaboration with societal groups to generate approaches that can help expand our imagination and action towards more just and sustainable futures.

The first half of the course provides a strong theoretical and methodological grounding in ‘futuring’. You will come to see how futuring is a key part of social and political organization and outcomes everywhere. We will explore critical perspectives on why it so difficult to imagine and bring about ‘better’ futures, alongside state of the art techniques for facilitating collective imagination in ways that enable societal transformation. For example, we will examine how sustainability mapping and modelling practices as well as popular media and fiction have contributed to the construction of particular futures. Alongside this, we will explore a range of emergent futuring practices that employ artistic, participatory, and decolonial approaches to overcome western biases in how sustainability issues and possible futures are imagined. Through a mixture of (guest) lectures and creative interactive exercises, you will be introduced to diverse approaches to futuring, from mapping to speculative fiction.

During the second half of the course, you will put your learning to practice by working in smaller teams to co-design a process that enables societal groups to surface and navigate conflicting imaginaries of possible futures. Through this work you will directly engage with researchers, policymakers, activists and/or artists who hold very different perspectives on the future. The collection of approaches will be shared in a creative zine on how diverse approaches to imagining the future can enable transformation around the world. This group assignment will make up 50% of your grade. Other forms of assessment include a written guide on the art of futuring, where you will distill your critical and creative ideas on how engaging with futures can enable transformation (30%), and an end of the course critical reflection on your learning process (20%).

In summary, this course provides a unique mixture of critical, creative and participatory skills that will enhance the societal impact of your future work well beyond this course. This course is highly interdisciplinary and thus we welcome master’s students enrolled in a wide range of social, political, environmental, and technical oriented programmes concerned with how and why society transforms in particular directions (and not others). However, please note that if you are very unfamiliar with these topics and social science in general, additional readings and effort may be required to perform well. All master’s students across Utrecht University are eligible to join this course; however, only 55 spots in total are available.