Participatory Futures: Shaping Tomorrow, Together

"Futures for all cannot be imagined by a few." -Pupul Bisht

For too long, visions of the future have been created by a select few—those in positions of power. This has happened at the expense of the planet and marginalized communities, perpetuating cycles of inequality and extractive practices.

I've often heard futurists talk about the future as a neutral ground where we can overcome our differences and envision a better, less contentious future together. This view, in my mind, is too simplistic because it ignores the realities of people's lives, histories, traumas, and society's exclusionary structures.

Participatory Futures challenges these dominant narratives by democratizing the process of imagining and planning for a shared tomorrow. It recognizes that we need space and processes for envisioning and creating shared images of the future together, because we are not starting from a blank slate.

Our histories, experiences, and diverse perspectives need to be included and honored. More diverse inputs into our future visions are also what makes these visions stronger, more plausible, more applicable.

Participatory Futures is a process to cultivate collective wisdom, actively involving diverse groups of people in imagining, exploring, and creating possible futures together.

Through Participatory Futures, we can:

• Better prepare ourselves for a range of futures by considering multiple perspectives?
• Write inclusive narratives of the future that acknowledge and honor the past
• Envision more transformative action?

What does this look like in practice?

Better preparation for a range of futures:

My colleague Jane McGonigal ran a Participatory Futures simulation in 2009, inviting people around the world to imagine living through a future pandemic. By observing people's imagined reactions, she predicted what became reality during a real pandemic: people would resist wearing masks, and would break stay-at-home orders to attend life cycle and religious events. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, participants reported feeling more prepared, with some saying, "I'm not freaking out, I already worked through the panic and anxiety when we imagined it 10 years ago," and "Time to start social distancing!"

This exercise not only accurately predicted many challenges we faced during COVID-19, but also helped participants feel more prepared when the real pandemic occurred. By collectively pre-experiencing the future, we rehearse how we might respond, can better prepare for unintended consequences, and see opportunities we might not have seen. The process strengthens individual and collective preparedness.

Participatory Futures processes diversify inputs and reactions to possible futures—allowing us to see a wider range of probable outcomes.?

Write inclusive narratives of the future:

When we imagine versions of the future in and with community, we can start to see the world—and the future—from different perspectives. Including the views of lived experience experts not only helps build empathy, but makes our futures stories stronger, more culturally relevant, and more actionable.

A few years ago, I hosted renowned futurist Pupul Bisht for a conversation about her work in creating inclusive storytelling methodologies. She shared her work with rural women completing a 6-month solar engineering training at India’s Barefoot College . These women—mothers and grandmothers from rural communities around the world—were getting ready to return to their villages and bring what they'd learned, some of them preparing to bring electricity to their villages for the first time.?

They were nervous that not everyone in the community would embrace these new sustainable technologies, recognizing potential barriers and traditional cultural narratives that could hinder implementation. Bisht helped them "build these beautiful visions of the future of solar-powered villages that were very specific to their communities." They could then take those stories back home to inspire transformative change that would feel relevant in their respective communities.

Envision more transformative action:

In Japan, Future Design Councils invite residents to participate in policy and decision-making community meetings. Residents adopt two perspectives: one reflecting the needs and concerns of current residents, and another projecting those of residents in 2060. They discuss as in any community meeting, but when talking about the projected needs of the year 2060, they wear yellow robes to signify they are in the future together.?

Studies have shown that the “2060” residents recommend city plans that are significantly more transformative than those recommended by present day residents alone.

Decision-making needs to get better at accounting for future generations" - Nesta , "Our Futures: by the people for the people"

Inspired by the principle of seventh-generation decision making , the Future Design Councils strengthen intergenerational justice by include the preferences of future generations - perspectives that rarely, if ever, are considered in policy-making.

The transformative power of participation

A well-crafted Participatory Futures process itself can be transformative - not just in the outcomes it produces, but also for the individuals and communities who participate. In my years of community engagement and co-design practice, I've observed that when we build things together, we start to see beyond labels. We see our differences as strengths that make us more resilient. We build bonds through shared experiences that are conducive to civil conversations.

Research tells us shared images of the future can "offer orientation in times of uncertainty or when the necessity of reshaping our living environments becomes apparent."

In these highly uncertain times, how might Participatory Futures help us re-weave the fabric of our communities that orient us towards a better future?

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