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In this article I describe Critical Future Studies based on the work of Inayatullah, Grunwald and Goode and Godhe.
The field of futures studies describes ‘the scientific study of possible, desirable and probable future developments’ (Kreibich 2006). While most futures studies have focused on using scientific methods to create new images of the future (e.g. scenarios), there have been repeated efforts since the late 1970s to examine existing images of the future (e.g. Slaughter 1984).
Unreflected Assumptions in Images of the Future
Sohail Inayatullah is one of the most influential thinkers in Critical Future Studies. Influenced by post-structuralism, he pointed out in his seminal article (1999) on Critical Future Studies that every activity that explores the future is based on epistemological assumptions: temporal, economic, political, ideological-cultural and linguistic. But even in futures studies, these assumptions usually go unquestioned. They are not scrutinised and therefore influence the results invisibly.
Deconstructing Images of the Future
This is precisely where critical future studies come in, deconstructing images of the future as ‘present futures’ (Grunwald 2009). They provide less information about future events than about the desires, interests, needs and ideas that exist in the present and are expressed in images of the future.
According to Inayatullah, the aim of critical future studies is to create new epistemological spaces in which alternative futures can emerge by historicising and deconstructing futures – or, as he puts it, ‘undefining the future’ (Inayatullah 2004). (Inayatullah 1998)
Critical Future Studies
In their revision of the concept, Goode and Godhe (2017) place the ‘futural public sphere’ – the public debate about the future – at the centre of their considerations. This helps them to shift the focus from individual images of the future in arbitrary contexts to a more holistic perception of the constituent ideas of the future in a social context.
On this basis, they define critical future studies as follows:
“CFS investigates the scope and constraints within public culture for imagining and debating different potential futures. It interrogates imagined futures founded – often surreptitiously – upon values and assumptions from the past and present, as well as those representing a departure from current social trajectories.”
Like Inayatullah, however, they do not want to stop at the mere deconstruction of these visions of the future, but call for a ‘reconstructive turn’ to enrich public discourse with alternative futures.
Building on Inayatullah, Grunwald and Goode and Godhe, critical future studies, in my view, has two aims:
- A better understanding of the present from images of the future of society
- The “opening of the future” by expanding the space of plausible futures and developing alternative futures.
In summary: critical future studies deconstruct existing images of the future in order to better understand the present and shape a more diverse future.
Network for Critical Future Studies
In 2023, together with Jonas Drechsel, I founded the German-speaking network for critical future studies, which now has over 200 members. We regularly organise digital events on this topic.
References
Goode, L., & Godhe, M. (2017). Beyond Capitalist Realism – Why We Need Critical Future Studies. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 9(1), 109–129. doi:10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1790615
Grunwald, A. (2009). Wovon ist die Zukunftsforschung eine Wissenschaft? In Zukunftsforschung und Zukunftsgestaltung. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
Inayatullah, S. (1998). Causal Layered Analysis – Poststructuralism as method. Futures, 30(8), 15.
Inayatullah, S. (1999). Critical futures research. Queensland University of Technology. http://www.metafuture.org/Critical%20futures%20research.pdf
Inayatullah, S. (2004). Causal Layered Analysis: Theory, historical context, and case studies. In The Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) Reader. Tamkang University Press.
Kreibich, R. (2006). Zukunftsforschung – ArbeitsBericht Nr. 23/2006. IZT – Institut für Zukunftsstudien und Technologiebewertung gemeinnützige GmbH.
Slaughter, R. A. (1984). Towards a Critical Futurism. World Future Society Bulletin, (v18 n4), 19–25.