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Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) Defined (2014)

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Sohail Inayatullah

A version of this appeared in The Futurist (January-February, 2014), 26.

 

RESEARCH THEORY AND METHOD

Causal layered analysis (CLA) is offered as a new research theory and method. As a theory it seeks to integrate empiricist, interpretive, critical, and action learning modes of knowing at inner and outer levels. As a method, its utility is not in predicting the future but in creating transformative spaces for the creation of alternative futures. It is also likely to be useful in developing more effective — deeper, inclusive, longer term — policy.

Since its invention in the late 1980s, it has been used successfully with governments, corporations, international think tanks, communities, and cities around the world. It has also been used as the primary research method for dozens of doctoral and master’s students around the world.

Causal layered analysis consists of four levels: the litany, social causes, discourse/worldview, and myth/metaphor. The first level is the litany — the official unquestioned view of reality. The second level is the social causation level, the systemic perspective. The data of the litany is explained and questioned at this second level. The third level is the discourse/worldview. Deeper, unconsciously held ideological, worldview and discursive assumptions are unpacked at this level. As well, how different stakeholders construct the litany and system is explored. The fourth level is the myth/metaphor, the unconscious emotive dimensions of the issue.

The challenge is to conduct research that moves up and down these layers of analysis and thus is inclusive of different ways of knowing. Different perspectives (including those of stakeholders, ideologies and epistemes) are in particular brought in the third and fourth levels – at the levels of worldview and myth. This allows for breadth. These differences are then used to reconstruct the more visible levels – social policy and litany.

CLA as well can be applied not just to the external world but to the inner world of meanings – the litany of self-representation, the system of identities, the discourses of the architecture of the mind, and foundational myths and metaphors that define the construction of identity. Conceptual movement through depth and breadth, allows for the creation of authentic alternative futures and integrated transformation. CLA begins and ends by questioning the future.

CLA, FUTURES STUDIES, AND POST-STRUCTURALISM

Embedded in the emerging discourse of futures studies, causal layered analysis (CLA) draws largely from poststructuralism, macrohistory, and postcolonial multicultural theory.[i] It seeks to move beyond the superficiality of conventional social science research and forecasting methods insofar as these methods are often unable to unpack discourses — worldviews and ideologies — not to mention archetypes, myths, and metaphors.

Causal layered analysis is concerned less with predicting a particular future and more with opening up the present and past to create alternative futures. It focuses less on the horizontal spatiality of futures and more on the vertical dimension of futures studies, of layers of analysis. Causal layered analysis opens up space for the articulation of constitutive discourses, which can then be shaped as scenarios. In essence, CLA is a search for integration in methodology, seeking to combine differing research traditions.

These traditions are in flux, in the social sciences generally and futures studies specifically. Futures studies has decisively moved from ontological concerns about the nature of the predicability of the universe to epistemological concerns about the knowledge interests in varied truth claims about the future.

This has led futures studies from being “the bastard child of positivism”,[ii] (prediction) to interpretation and ethnography (the meanings we give to data). And the field’s conceptual evolution has not stopped there. More recently, futures methodologies have been influenced by the poststructural thrust, with concerns for not what is being forecasted but what is missing from particular forecasts and images of the future. This is the layered approach to reality.

At the same time, the limits of instrumental rationality and strategic consciousness have become accepted, largely because of critiques of rationality by scholars associated with the environmental movement, the feminist movement, and spiritual movements — the new post-normal sciences — among others. Moreover, while globalisation has not suddenly developed a soft heart, the agenda now includes how we know the world and how these knowings are complicit in the disasters around us.[iii] This has led to calls to move from strategy as the defining metaphor of the world system to health, or inner and outer balance.

However, the move to poststructuralism, within the CLA framework, should not be at the expense of data–orientation or meaning–oriented research and activism. Indeed, data is seen in the context of meanings, within the context of epistemes (or knowledge parameters that structure meanings; for example, class, gender, the interstate system), and myths and metaphors that organise the deep beliefs, the traumas and transcendence that over time define identity — what it means to mean and to be. CLA does not argue for excluding the top level of the iceberg for bottom–of–the–sea analysis; rather, all levels are required and needed for fulfilling — valid and transformative — research. Moreover, in this loop of data–meaning–episteme–myth, reconstruction is not lost. Action is embedded in epistemology.

Thus, I argue here for an eclectic, integrated but layered approach to methodology. The approach is not based on the idiosyncratic notions of a particular researcher. Nor is it a turn to the postmodern, in that all methods or approaches are equally valid and valuable. Hierarchy is not lost and the vertical gaze remains. But it challenges power over others and divorces hierarchy from its feudal/traditional modes. This eclecticism is not merely a version of pragmatic empiricism — “do whatever works, just solve the problem”. How myth, worldview, and social context create particular litany problems remains foundational.

This politics of epistemology is part of the research process. Politics is acknowledged and self-interest disclosed. Of course, not all self-interest can be disclosed since we all operate from epistemes that are outside of our knowing efforts. Indeed, episteme shapes what we can and cannot know. While eclectic and layered approaches hope to capture some of the unknowns, by definition, the unknown remains mysterious. Acknowledging the unknown is central to futures research. This does not mean that the future cannot be precisely predicted, but rather that the unknown creeps into any research, as does the subjective. Moreover, the unknown is expressed in different ways and different ways of knowing are required to have access to it.

Freeing methodology from politics is a never–ending task; however, it can be accomplished not by controlling for these variables but by layering them

CLA, POLICY, AND STRATEGY

As mentioned above, CLA works at a number of levels, delving deeper than the litany, the headline, or a data level of reality to reach a systemic-level understanding of the causes for the litany. Below that level, CLA goes still further, searching for worldview or stakeholder views on issues. Finally, it unpacks the deepest metaphor levels of reality. Each subsequent level below reveals a deeper cause.

Take quality and safety issues in health care, for example. At the litany level, a problem in the United States is the more than 100,000 deaths per year related to medical mistakes. If we do not go deeper in understanding causation, almost always the business-as-usual strategy is to focus on the individual: more training for particular doctors. By going deeper, however, we discover that safety issues lie not just with particular doctors making mistakes, but rather with the medical and hospital system as a whole. Long working hours, hospitals poorly designed for a maturing society, and lack of communication among different parts of the https://sapmea.asn.au/cialis-20mg/ health system are among other key issues.

Below the systemic level is the worldview, the deep structure of modern medicine. At this level, the reductionist approach, while brilliant at certain types of problem solving, is less useful for connecting with patients, with seeing the whole. Thus, patients opt for other systems that provide a deeper connection. Patients thus intuitively move to the deepest level, that of myth and metaphor: “The patient will see you now” or “I am an expert of my body” challenge the modernist view of “the doctor is always right” as organizing metaphors.

CLA broadens our understanding of issues by creating deeper scenarios. We can explore deep myths and new litanies based on the points of view of different stakeholders—nurses, peer-to-peer health networks, future generations, caregivers, etc.—and then see how they construct problems and solutions.

Finally, CLA is used for implementing new strategies to address issues. Does the new strategy ensure systemic changes (incentives and fines)? Does it lead to worldview-cultural change? Is there a new metaphor, a narrative for the new strategy? And, most importantly, does the new vision have a new litany, a new way to ensure that the strategies reinforce the new future and are not chained to the past?

Causal Layered Analysis thus can be used to deepen our understanding of strategy. Mapping reality from the viewpoint of multiple stakeholders enables us to develop more-robust scenarios. It helps us to understand current reality, and, by giving us a tool to dig deeper and more broadly, it allows us to create an alternative future that is robust in its implementation.

 

[i] This is from the works of writers such as P.R. Sarkar, Ashis Nandy, and Edward Said.

[ii] J. Dator, e-mail transmission, 24 December 1992. Quoted in: S. Inayatullah, ‘From who am I to when am I?’, Futures, Vol 25, No 3, 1993, 236.

[iii] For example, the USA’s lack of capacity to understand Pushtun culture and its foundational categories of honor create a conflict with no ways out. See, Hasan Jafri, & Lewis Dolinsky, ‘Why bombing and warnings are not working’, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 October, 2001.

A Review of Ivana Milojević’s Educational Futures (2006)

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By Marcus Anthony

The West, The East and Milojevic’s Educational Futures 

The purpose of this paper is to critically review Milojevic’s Educational Futures. Firstly I outline the contents of the text and some of its strengths and weaknesses. Secondly I take to task some of the features of the text that represent typically problematic aspects of critical futures, in particular the concept of “The West.” I compare and contrast certain aspects of Eastern and Western education, with a particular emphasis on Chinese education. A seminal point is that the portrayal of these concepts in Milojevic’s text is simplistic, reflecting the need for an updating of postcolonial, poststructural and critical futures thought.

 

Text name: Educational Futures: Dominant and Contesting Visions
Author: Ivana Milojevic
Subject: Educational futures
Publication details: Oxon: Routledge

Reviewer: Marcus Anthony

What distinguishes hegemonic futures narratives from other, counter or alternative, ones is their capacity to convince others of the inevitability of a particular future. (Milojevic 2006 65)

In Educational Futures: Dominant and Contesting Visionseducational futurist Ivana Milojevic has written a compelling and readable volume. Here I shall provide a brief description of the contents, while giving an overall evaluation of the volume. There is not space here to offer a complete examination of all parts of the volume, so I shall focus upon what I consider to be the most salient points. The text is particularly useful in that it highlights some of the strengths and typical problems with critical futures. The problem that I shall focus upon in the latter part of this paper is Milojevic’s representation of East and West.

The text

The title is a good indication of what lies within the covers. This is a critical futures text, where ideas and images about “possible, probable and preferred futures” (p. 2) are examined. It “provides an overview and detailed analysis of arguments about where education, particularly state-based education systems, is and should be going” (p. 4). Yet as Milojevic states, it is neither about prediction nor prescription. Instead she sets out to destabilise the dominant narratives and offer alternative perspectives from other largely silenced discourses.

The book is divided into four parts. In part one Milojevic outlines historical futures discourses in education. This includes an analysis of how constructs of time and the future have been used to colonise and educate “the other.” Several alternative histories are outlined with indigenous and Eastern concepts featuring heavily.

In part two Milojevic highlights the two most dominant narratives in contemporary state education – globalisation and “cyberia” (“WebNet”). These are two closely related discourses according to Milojevic. Modern education – and particularly globalised education – is criticised as being “essentially practical training for a globalised market place” (p.57). The central issue with these images of the future is that they tend to be seen as “the future” (p.64) rather than as one of many possible futures.

Milojevic’s approach is not simply to criticise the dominant discourses and highlight the benefits of alternatives. Rather she outlines the strengths and weakness of all the dominant and contesting visions. This approach gives the text balance. The weakness of such an approach is that the detached perspective often leaves the reader in a space of uncertainty. Which of these discourses, and in what combination, represents the best way to take us forward? Typical of critical futures, Milojevic chooses not to take a definite stance. A related problem is that the text at times becomes descriptive, as Milojevic outlines numerous theorists regarding the particular subject matter at hand. Nonetheless it does provide a sound review of related literature. The text will therefore prove valuable for researchers and educators looking to gain an overview of the relevant discourses.

In the third part of the book Milojevic posits three alternative approaches to education – the indigenous, the feminist, and the spiritual. These represent important perspectives which are still largely absent from cotemporary public education. The final section then attempts to weave all the visions together and looks to the possible future of an expanded discussion of state education in The West.

The feminist vision, according to Milojevic, challenges the patriarchal presuppositions of the dominant educational discourses, highlighting the importance of emotional connection, nurturing, and internal transformation (pp. 146-147).

Milojevic remains critical of utopian thinking, but maintains that is it nonetheless important. She believes in the importance of “eupsychia” – “a prescriptive and improved imagined state of not only collective but also individual being” (p. 50). This includes the psychic and spiritual unfolding of the individual (p. 54).

However the text clearly privileges certain religious perspectives. For example Milojevic’s discussion of spiritual alternatives focuses upon Eastern (especially Indian) and new age perspectives. The role of traditional religious approaches is left unclear. Milojevic leans away from conventional religion. Quoting O’Sullivan (1999) she writes:

Religion does not only attempt to institutionalize spirituality; in many instances this is done ‘for the perpetuation of the institution rather than for the explicit welfare of the individual’ (p.191).

The three alternative education approaches are in many ways related, as Milojevic herself states. They remind us that the future is not inevitable, that there are other options available to educators in the present age. This I feel is the greatest value of this book. Let us not forget that – as Milojevic states bluntly – all education is informed by cultural values.

West, East and stereotypes

One point that I would like to take up with the text is its representation of ‘The West’. For example Milojevic finds that The West has forgotten indigenous, feminist and spiritual education. Yet as one who has lived and traveled widely throughout East Asia, such a criticism is not exclusively relevant to modern Western education systems. It may come as a surprise to those filled with romantic images of the Far East, but in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong, Milojevic’s educational alternatives are even more distanced from mainstream education than they are in the West. These Eastern cultures seem all but completely possessed by cyber culture, materialism and the push for greater globalisation. Schools are dominated by rote learning, are heavily text-book based, teacher-centred, and there is an almost-obsession with “the test.”

There may be a temptation to (once again) blame the West for the increasing materialism and left-brained, linear ways of knowing that now dominate state education in East Asia. We might suggest that Asia is simply copying Western-style society and education. The issue here – and with postcolonial interpretations in general – is whether the West is itself being stereotyped and partially misrepresented in these depictions. Consider the following statements made by Milojevic:

Lawlor argues that it is thus western logical habits that cause us to fall into static, uniform, quantitative interpretation and make us fail to see qualitative process-related differences (p.480).

Milojevic also points out that indigenous critiques of contemporary education find a central focus upon “western knowledge and education” (p. 174). Further, as with so many other critiques of Western ways of knowing, Milojevic finds unfeeling Cartesian rationalism as the defining thrust of Western cognition (p. 147). Finally she follows Griffiths as she concludes:

The current hegemonic approach to time can be described as western, Christian, linear, abstract, clock-dominated, work orientated, coercive, capitalist, masculine and anti-natural. (p. 223)

Yet is such an approach to history and time – and these preferred way of knowing – predominantly and peculiarly Western at all? Chinese ways of knowing are often seen as being based on holistic concepts such as the Taoist yin and yang, and Lao Tzu’s fluid water metaphors (e.g. Capra 200; Jiyu 1998; Talbot 2000). But there is a tendency to romanticise this. My experiences (having taught in schools in Taiwan, urban and rural mainland China and in Hong Kong) have led me to conclude that such ways of knowing are (sadly) largely extinct in modern public education in the greater China region. Text books, rote learning and cramming for exams dominate pedagogy.

The key is that in Chinese culture at least, the linear, patriarchal, verbal/linguistic and mathematical approach to education has a long tradition which precedes Western influence. Within Confucian education, the copying and memorization of the classics formed the basis of an education system that was literally designed to create products that would fit neatly into an “harmonious” society. In particular the emphasis was on producing public servants for the state (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006). Passing the examination for the public service could lead one into the higher strata of Chinese society, and scholars were revered. Candidates were literally placed in neatly arranged box-like cubicles to do the public service exams (Gardner, Kornhaber, & Wake 1996), epitomising the conformist, linear and boxed-in ways of knowing. The examination system was seen to be of greatest importance, and able students put themselves to the task of memorizing vast amounts of information for a purpose no greater than regurgitating it in the public service exams (Fairbank & Goleman 2006).

To this day a virtual obsession with examinations stifles Far Eastern public education to a degree difficult to contemplate in The West. Finally, it should be noted that the proportion of Chinese tertiary students presently majoring in maths and science is several times greater than that of developed Western nations such as the United States (Friedman, 2006). From my experience, pantheistic, mystical and indigenous ways of knowing are totally absent. Further the Chinese degradation of the environment and subjugation of Tibetans and indigenous peoples proceeds at breakneck speed.

Of further consideration in being more accurate to the concept of “The West” is that if we look at the history of Western civilisation we find a long tradition of mystical and intuitive ways of knowing that have spanned numerous cultures from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present day (Anthony 2006; Tarnas 2000). Even the fathers of modern science such as Newton, Galileo and Kepler held deeply mystical conceptions. According to Kepler himself, astronomers were not mere observers:

… in all acquisition of knowledge it happens that, starting out from the things which impinge upon the senses, we are carried by the operation of the mind to higher things which cannot be grasped by any sharpness of the senses (quoted in Huff 2003 p 353).

The irony is that even as Milojevic (following Krishnamurti) critiques dominant Western education because its focus upon “information and knowledge” does not lead to “intelligence”, “goodness” or “flowering” (p.201), the same critique is now even more relevant to education in China and East Asia, where the spiritual has been leached from the curriculum. The discrepancy arises because Milojevic draws heavily upon Indian thinkers such as Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, Gandhi and Sarkar. These men taught and wrote much of their work before the economic explosion of East Asia in the latter decades of the twentieth century.

I therefore see the need to make a clear distinction between the Indian episteme and the current East Asian episteme, and especially to acknowledge the social and economic developments of Asia in recent years. This in no way illegitimates Milojevic’s essential argument that spiritual, feminist and indigenous perspectives may be enormously beneficial in modern education. It simply means that (ironically) hyper-capitalistic East Asian cultures themselves are the ones that are in most need of such perspectives.

The issues highlighted here are equally relevant to an emerging domain of futures studies – integral futures. This field tends to valorise the spiritual and The East, drawing heavily from the work of Ken Wilber. Such figures as Sohail Inayatullah, Richard Slaughter, Chris Reidy, Marcus Bussey and myself can be said to be influenced by, or actively involved in this field (see the Journal of Futures Studies May 2006 to read all these theorists). Ivana Milojevic has also been influenced by this movement, and uses the term “integral education” to describe a curriculum more deeply imbued with holistic and spiritual perspectives. The key point I wish to make here is whether such a movement (and critical futures literature in general) is tending to romanticize and champion the exotic and alternative – in Milojevic’s case The East, indigenous cultures and feminist perspectives? I find Friedman’s (2005) critique of transpersonal psychology for these very same issues to be relevant here. It must be noted that Wilber (2000) himself has drawn great inspiration from the transpersonalists and Eastern philosophy – and his followers have been accused of being a “cult” (Bauwens, n.d.).

In conclusion to these concerns I would like to state that from my direct experience in working in education in The East and also in Australia, New Zealand, and visiting schools in the United States, I strongly believe that our terms of cultural reference need clarifying and upgrading in the twenty-first century. The world can no longer simply be dichotomised into West and East. With the increasing prosperity of Asia, the power shift that has begun may continue to a point where Asia will drive the world’s economy within a few short decades (Friedman 2006). The dramatic social shifts in Asia which are accompanying these changes mean that references to The East as a culture founded upon spiritual and mystical precepts is now more stereotype than actuality. It would be something of an irony if Integral Futures were to take greater influence in The West in years to come even as Asia continues to “Westernise.” We may find at some point that futures conferences are filled with “Eastern” mystics from Western countries and “Western” theorists from Asia.

Final remarks

Despite these significant issues, Milojevic’s work is recommended. It highlights the important role of critical futures studies. Without the identification of the hegemonic and contesting discourses in education those hegemonic discourses will tend to remain implicit, invisible and viewed as inevitable.

Milojevic stops short of offering a definite prescription for our educational ills. Instead she concludes with a list of questions. She believes that an engagement with the central questions she posits and a deeper reflection upon “the full diversity of worldviews” and ways of knowing will lead to the greatest beneficial changes in education and society (p.257). This leaves the reader less than certain about where she stands. Yet such an uncertainty may well be a necessity for any revision or shift in perspective and paradigm. It may be that the didacticism that tends to be inherent in dominant social, political and educational narratives is what prevents us from broadening our visions. Discomfort and unease may be the price we have to pay as we challenge our imagined futures.

Milojevic has made a solid contribution to pedagogical theory here. Personally I would like to see such a text form part of teacher training in B. ed, Dip. ed and masters courses. Future teachers and educational administrators should be engaging with these issues. As Milojevic indicates (p.45), our images of the future guide our current actions. Finally, according to Milojevic a paradigm shift is beginning whereby indigenous and Eastern conceptions of education are becoming more accepted (ibid.) As Kuhn (1970) so aptly pointed out, paradigms delimit not only particular domains of enquiry, but also the kinds of questions that are permissible. Milojevic broadens both the domains of knowledge and the range of possible questions. The possibilities might be uncomfortable to consider and the choices destabilising – but this is by necessity.

Selected References

Bauwens, M., n.d., ‘The cult of Ken Wilber. Available from: www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/Cult_of_Ken_Wilber.html.  [Accessed 13 January 2006].

Capra, F., 2000. The Tao of Physics (25th anniversary edition). Boston: Shambhala.

Inayatullah, S., 2004. Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Future: Predictive, Cultural and Critical Epistemologies. In: Inayatullah S., (Ed). The Causal Layered Analysis Reader. Taipei: Tamkang University Press, 55-82.

Fairbank, J., and Goldman, M. 2006. China: A New History. Cambridge: Belknap.

Friedman, H., 2005. Towards Developing Transpersonal Psychology As a Scientific Field. Available from: www.Westga.edu/~psydept/os2/papers/friedman.htm. [Accessed  6 July 2005].

Friedman, T., 2006. The World is Flat. London: Allen Lane.

Gardner, H., Kornhaber, M.L., & Wake, W.K., 1996. Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives. New York: Harcourt Brace College.

Huff, T., 2003. The Rise of Early Modern Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Jiyu, R., (ed.) 1998. The Book of Lao Zi. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Kuhn, T., 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

O’Sullivan, E., 1999. Transformative Learning: Educational Vision for the 21st Century, Toronto: OISE, University of Toronto Press.

Talbot, M., 1992. Mysticism and the New Physics. New York: Arkana.

Tarnas, R. 2000. The Passion of the Western Mind.

Wilber, K., 2000c. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Boston: Shambhala.

Futures Studies and Women’s Visions (2000)

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[Entry by Ivana Milojević, 2000, Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge, pp.894-895]

 

Future studies – the systematic study of the preferred, possible and probable versions of the future – is a relatively new field. In its modern history it has moved from being focused on utopianism to making empirical predictions. Currently, futures studies in government and business is dominated by strategic planning, technology impact assessment and risk analysis. In academia, following the social sciences in general, futures studies has taken a more critical perspective, focused less on what the future will be like, or even on the range of alternative futures, to what is missing in particular visions of the future. The quest for a more balanced study of the future is being driven by futurists who are far less committed to corporatist and scientific interests and far more sympathetic to multicultural concerns as to who is likely to be excluded if a certain future comes about. There is thus a slow but significant shift toward future studies as a management tool to control the future to future studies as a framework for social emancipation.

Still, future studies remains largely male dominated in terms of practitioners and in terms of the epistemological assumptions that underlie theory, methodology and content. Women remain excluded from both the history and the future of the future. At the same time, the evidence of women’s one-time importance when it comes to understanding and creating the future can be easily found in the realm of old and long memories, for example, as expressed in Slav, Greek, Roman, Nordic, Saxon and Indian mythology. In most archaic traditions, one of the important functions of a goddess was the deciding men’s fates. In Slav tradition, sudjenice are three women in charge of deciding everyone’s personal destiny. One of the rare deities, and possibly the only deity, specifically in charge of the future was in fact not a male deity but a female deity, Skuld, one of the Norns from the Nordic tradition.

Even during the times when patriarchy was at its peak, there were always individual women who challenged prescribed gender relationships and gender roles. But in most societies, men have been in charge of controlling the public future and women have had little say about it. Women’s encounter with the future was confined to better care for future generations and present households.

Elise Boulding, a peace theorist and futurists, explains this ambiguity – that is, women simultaneously being and not being “in charge” of the future. According to Boulding, one important historical role of women was as conservers of resources and as nurturers to fend off “the effects of change as much as possible in order to preserve a space of tranquility for those in their care”. At the same time, “every woman with responsibility for a household is a practicing futurist,” and women have always been the “womb of the future in every society” (Boulding, 1983: 9).

The appearance of the feminist movement was crucial in redefining what issues are “important” and “global”. The feminist dictum that the personal is political gave women long needed legitimization to bring what they considered extremely important to the discussion about the creation of the future. The old and traditional women’s activities directed towards influencing the future (for example, through the roles of witches or fates), which were primarily local, personal, family- and community-oriented, got legitimization to be brought to the societal level. Even more important, the legitimization of “women’s issues” has created the possibility for many women futurists to write about both local and (redefined) global directions for the future.

Many women futurists have envisioned radically different future societies and suggested feminist alternatives to patriarchy. As a movement for social change, feminism is concerned with offering alternative visions of the future. Women futurists concentrate particularly on the study of the future in order to both redefine the present and articulate an alternative vision.

Women’s Visions

Women’s visions of the future are usually somewhat different from those of men. While both genders are concerned with the betterment of humankind in the future, most men tend to concentrate on “grand” historical analyses and issues, concentrating especially on realist discussions of emerging political powers as well as on new technologies. The predominance of power-oriented forecasting is evidenced by the focus on nation-oriented “Year 2000” or “Year 2020” studies (strategic in orientation) and the predominance of technological forecasting is evident in the images of the future that are circulated – for example, production of babies in factories and other types of mediation of human relationships through genetic and other new technologies. The methodologies used still rely heavily on “expert” opinion and on development of powerful mathematics “formulas” to forecast and develop accurate trend analysis. Most women futurists do not reject new technologies, nor do they refuse to acknowledge the obvious impact of technology on the lives of present and future generations. But the focus is often rather on human relationships and is more inclusive of the perspective of the powerless.

In terms of methodology, trend analysis is not a preferred method of future studies, as many trends are quite discouraging for the future of women or the speed of change is extremely slow. While this method is useful in revealing the likely future if current trends do not change, it offers no alternatives. On the other hand, methods such as visioning, in which preferred futures are articulated, and backcasting, in which the preferable future is developed and then the path toward it is “remembered”, are more relevant for women, and other similarly disadvantaged members of (global) society.

Visions of future societies are developed everywhere, but those developed in the West are the best known and most influential. Examples include the “win-win world” in which the escape route from the prison of gender as well as economism is through the path of cooperation, community and caring (Hazel Henderson 1996); the “gentle (androgynous) society” (Boulding 1977); and the “partnership society (gylany)” (Eisler, 1996). In South Asia, Nandini Joshi envisions the future of the world community “not in the huge, crowded, cumbersome, crime-threatened cities, overridden with unemployment and inflation” but in “lustrous, flourishing, free villages overflowing with useful goods, professions, intelligence and arts” (Joshi, 1992, 935). Many other women as well imagine preferable futures, for example, through feminist fiction and through global grassroots movements. These preferable futures are usually along the lines of decentralized, non-hierarchical, ecologically and economically sustainable societies where communal life, family life, parenting and education are highly valued, institutions are human-scaled and diversity is celebrated.

Futurists also develop scenarios for the future. Scenarios are useful in that they can empower individuals and communities, as a range of preferable futures can be chosen and actions developed in order to achieve them. They are also important because they articulate futures that can help women develop strategies to try to avoid certain futures or at least diminish their impact. Scenarios also distance us from the present, creating alternative futures that contest traditional gender roles.

Senarios for women’s futures usually include (1) continued female-male polarity (in the form of male backlash, continued growth/patriarchy, or status quo) (2) (lesbian) separatism and (3) partnership or a golden age of equality (imagined in the form of unisex androgyny or in the form of multiple gender diversities). In the “continued female-male polarity” scenario, gender is fixed and there is little escape from socially constructed gender roles. Societies either stay the same, with patriarchy changing only form and not substance; or the patriarchy increases, either through slow growth or dramatically in the form of male backlash against recent women’s gains in the society. Women’s separatism is one response to such futures, as women form women only groupings. The “partnership” scenario imagines societies where there is equal cooperation of genders, where women increasingly adopt virtues traditionally seen as masculine and vice versa, or where gender becomes even more fluid and essentialist categories such as “man” or “woman” abandoned altogether.

No matter which scenario dominates, it is imperative that women continue to address the future in public, private, and epistemological spaces.

References and Further Reading

Aburdene, Patricia and Naisbitt, John. 1992. Megatrends for women, New York: Villard Books.

Boulding Elise. 1977. The underside of history: A view of women through time, Boulder, Col.: Westview.

Boulding Elise. 1983.Women’s visions of the future, in Eleonora Masini, ed., Visions of desirable societies, Pergamon,

Eisler Riane. 1987. The chalice and the blade: Our history, our future, San Francisco: HarperCollins.

Eisler Riane. 1996. Sacred pleasure, San Francisco: HarperCollins.

Gender and change. 1989. Futures 21(1).

Henderson, Hazel. 1996..Building a win-win world: Life beyond global economic warfare. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler.

Jones, Christopher. 1996. Women of the future: Alternative scenarios. Futurist 30 (3: May-June).

Joshi, Nandini. 1992. Women can change the future. Futures (9: November)

Special report on women’s preferred futures, Futurist. 1997. (3: May-June).

Women and the future. 1994. The Manoa Journal of Fried and Half-Fried Ideas, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.

McCorduck, Pamela and Ramsey, Nancy. 1996. The futures of women: Scenarios for the 21st century, New York: Warner.

Milojević, Ivana. Feminising futures studies. 1999. In Ziauddin Sardar, ed., Rescuing all our futures: The future of futures studies. Twickenham,U.K.: Adamantine.

 

* NB: While the original text written by Ivana Milojević used the term ‘futures studies’ this was changed by the editors of the Encyclopedia to ‘future studies’

Gender Issues: Futures and Implications for Global Humanity (2008)

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By Ivana Milojević

Written for Berkshire Encyclopedia of the 21st Century (2008). Encyclopedia was not published.

Gender refers to the social construction of humans physiologically and biologically identified as women and men. Because gender is a socially constructed category, we are ‘doing’ rather than being men or women. That is, we (humans) engage in the cultural behaviours of practicing femininity and masculinity. However, gender categories are much more fluid than simply those of women/men; they exist on a continuum between these two ‘ideal types’ (of females and males). Most people exhibit a combination of what are believed to be binary opposing female and male traits such as, for example: intuition/instinct versus rationality; receptive/passive versus active; protective/nourishing versus forceful/assertive; moon- versus sun-like. This symbolism – binarism between two genders – exists in most world cultures but the actual manifestation/description of these traits differs through space and time. Contemporary global culture is significantly based on this dualism, which is, however, being challenged by some significant future trends.

In addition to developments in science, technology and medicine, various cultural changes have also destabilised the common sense approach to how we ‘do’ gender. One of the most significant cultural forces of the twentieth century has been feminism. This social movement – as well as ideology, worldview, theory, practice and way of life – has insisted that gender identities need to become both more fluid and socially accepted. There are many feminisms and women’s movements globally and so the issues of gender differences and identities are seen/defined/theorised in a multitude of ways. What is common to all these feminist’s and women’s orientations is that they wish to change the situation in which femaleness is seen as a disease, an aberration from the norm, and replace it with acknowledgment that this category is an asset with intrinsic value.

These various women’s movements also share a belief that many of our contemporary challenges are a result of the domination of one gender – male – and of the priorities given to values traditionally assigned to masculinity. For example, spiritual eco feminists assert that the environmental challenges we are facing today partially arise from the binarism of civilisation versus nature, and the higher value attached to the former. Such binary thinking is in turn premised on the male versus female division and the overall patriarchal worldview. This worldview envisions and promotes certain (successful, powerful, dominating) males to be at the top of the social hierarchy and over other (weaker) males, and women, other species and nature in general. Gender issues are thus not simply side issues, to be relegated to the spheres of gender identities, sexuality and family. Rather, they are embedded in all that our human species believes and practices. This includes how we commonly perceive our futures and how we engage with social innovation and change.

The futures of gender

To further describe contemporary processes and trends in relation to gender issues it is useful to outline three main scenarios for gender futures. Each will have radically different implications for the future of our local communities and global society.

Continued female–male polarity

Female–male polarity represents the traditional model, where differences between (only two) genders are potentiated and exaggerated. These two genders are seen as fixed, biologically determined and ahistorical/unchangeable. Most commonly, it is perceived that these two genders are distinct, having separate spheres of influence and very different attributes; at the same time, it is the male side that is more highly valued. This male side or masculinity is expressed through attributes of strength, courage, assertiveness, action, creation and self-confidence, all seen as being in-born to any human that is recognised as a male in a biological/ physiological sense. Sometimes, it is perceived that these two spheres of female/male influence are different but are/should be valued equally. This orientation exists in both more traditional social settings as well as in contemporary ones, albeit taking different forms.

To further enhance polarity between various genders, humans have engaged in certain bodily and spatial practices. Bodily modification as a mark of feminine/masculine identity has deep and ancient tribal roots. Some of the older practices (i.e. corset wearing, foot binding) have mostly been abandoned, while others (i.e. genital mutilation, piercing, tattooing, scarification, circumcision) are continuing. And of course new means of enhancing ones femininity or masculinity through various forms of body art are constantly being invented. Modern medicine and health science have allowed for physical manipulation of both female and male bodies towards (place- and time-specific) perceived ideals of femaleness and maleness. Reproductive organs are thus manipulated and/or enhanced – as is overall body appearance – through nutritional supplements, medicines, exercises and plastic surgery. The rates of plastic surgery in the western world – mostly to enhance one’s desirability and appeal to the other sex – have been continuously on the rise. These practices are most commonly entered into in order to fit the norm of perceived feminine/masculine beauty and thus affirm the female–male polarity. Other cultural practices of affirming this polarity incorporate division between private and public spheres and the segregation of females and males within each respective sphere. The male backlash in ‘post-feminist’ times and the continuation/revival of religious and political fundamentalism also heavily rely on the bi-polarity of genders.

Rarely, female–male polarity is used to imagine/work towards the creation of radically different societies. For example, in some feminist/women’s and moralist discourses, ‘feminine’ qualities of nurturing, caring, compassion, emotional sensitivity, vulnerability and intuition are seen as core strengths essential to the development of a better society. This is diametrically opposite to the values of patriarchal societies that award a second grade status to anything womanly or feminine. Radical forms of celebrating everything feminine are rare but do occur; at the more extreme and less common end are woman-centered heterosexual and lesbian separatism, female suprematism, matriarchy and gynarchy. These latter forms most commonly exist as an idea only, rather than finding their way into past/present reality.

Even though female–male polarity has been the dominant model for organising gender so far, and although its residues are going to follow us into the future, this model is, in general, most likely to remain a product of past and contemporary times.

Unisex androgyny

One of the earliest and most persistent goals of feminist and women’s movements has been to abolish sex roles and distinctions between feminine and masculine behaviour/attributes. The ideal of an androgynous future was thus propagated among these groups but also in the context of a wider society. Some twentieth century socialist societies promoted an androgynous ideal of dress and behaviour not only in practice but also as an ideal future wherein sexual equality manifests. Unisex androgyny is also imagined as a psychological condition or characteristic, where men increasingly adopt traditional ‘women’s virtues’ while women increasingly adopt virtues traditionally seen as masculine. Futurists Aburdene and Naisbett (1992: 262) have argued that in the future successful human beings will have to possess a combination of masculine and feminine traits. They also argued that as a group, women have better absorbed positive masculine traits, mostly because those were valued for centuries by male-dominated societies.

Scenarios in which women and men become physically more similar (as in the case of hermaphroditism, where the individual has primary and secondary sexual characteristics of both genders) are highly unlikely, although some claim that in the future it will be more difficult to establish the ‘natural’ gender of some individuals. Developments in medical science would enable mutations such that we would be able to change gender as we wish, and alternate the procreative functions that we today associate only with one gender or the other. won’t need men (sperm banks) and men won’t need women (artificial wombs), or reproduction won’t need either women or men (reproduction of babies in factories). If seen as a means to eliminate sexual stereotyping of human virtues, androgyny would be very close to some feminist ideals. Since division by gender is one of the oldest and most established divisions between humans, movement towards androgyny might be potentially liberating and revolutionary. But some feminists, for example Gloria Steinem, reject the concept of androgyny as it can lean towards conformist and unisex visions which are the opposite to the individuality and uniqueness envisaged in their understanding of feminism.

On the other hand, an ideal society would be one in which all differences would have freedom of expression. If the next centuries bring into reality reproduction external to the human body, the main reason for maintaining different social functions and roles for women and men would disappear, thus contributing to the formation of androgynous societies. Androgynous societies might be also formed as a by-product of removing socially prescribed qualities for each gender, and we might see future societies consisting of humans, rather than of men and women.

Multiple gender diversities

This vision/scenario/model proposes that it is not an androgyny of sameness that is the answer to sexual politics but rather freedom from repression and dominance as well as freedom of choice (Harris, 1980). The underlying assumption here is that physiologically, anatomically, neurologically, psychologically and culturally there exists a vast diversity among humans and to organise this diversity along one or two dimensions is unrealistic and detrimental. This scenario thus challenges the idea of heteronormativity in which female genitalia = female identity = feminine behaviour = desiring male partner. Or alternatively, for males, male genitalia = male identity = masculine behaviour = desiring female partner (Wikipedia, entry on third gender). There are many names given to a combination of sexual and gender identities, depending on whether one feels/behaves simultaneously like both genders, neither or something completely different. Terms such as third (fourth, fifth) gender, transgender, genderqueer, gender-bender, transsexual, intersexual, pangender and bigender are introduced (Wikipedia). Such scenarios of multiple gendered identities are not a recent invention and can be found through much of human history. As well, what exactly is considered ideal female or male identity/behaviour has also varied through space and time.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the general trend is towards this type of recognized multiplicity rather than towards forced uniformity. This scenario is most likely for the future since there is no longer a simple answer to the question “Who is woman (man)?”. Positions which describe sexes as ultimately biological categories are now considered simplistic naturalism and essentialism. The development of medical science has further destabilized essentialist views of gender. If we accept that ‘women’ and ‘men’ are mostly socially constructed categories, it is obvious that we cannot have only one construction and that those constructions would change over time. The creation of a society in which every difference is able to find expression would be dear to the heart of liberals and most feminists. A society which accepted multiple gender diversity would definitely create the greatest space for individual freedom and non-conformist persons. Ultimately, this will be another way of destabilizing the importance of gender in defying personal roles and functions within society. This appears to be the most likely – of the three scenarios – to gain recognition in the twenty-first century. This recognition is likely to be further enhanced by an overall shift towards individualism. As well, our contemporary frames of reference are global rather than being contained within particular societies and communities, therefore awareness of different ways of doing gender globally are only going to increase. In turn, this awareness is likely to further the diversification of genders, gender roles and identities.

Implications for the future of our global human society

During times of female–male polarity the division of labour among the two genders promoted unbalanced societies. For example, women were primarily in charge of child rearing, housekeeping, health care and education. Their work has thus mostly been relegated to the private sphere of the non-monetised ‘love economy’. On the other hand, men have been in charge of higher socially desired positions, dominating decision making and the monetised, professional public sphere. Unisex androgyny has challenged this division; however, it is mostly women that have entered the traditional male sphere and not vice versa. Likewise, the sameness of unisex androgyny is predominantly modelled upon a male norm.

The emergence of multiple gender diversities fundamentally challenges the societies we inherited. Once people become free to express themselves along the male–female continuum depending on internal and external circumstances – without fear of reprisal – more democratic and fairer societies will result. These societies will have flattened hierarchies, be more integrated and diverse and exhibit qualitatively different human–nature and human–human relatedness. New information and communication technologies are also going to be helpful in creating these societies of wider freedom and choice. This does not imply that future societies based on multiple gender diversities are to be/come perfect, utopian. But they may well become eutopian, that is, become a better option than our present and past conditions. None of this is to be taken for granted, as any future is premised on the action of present humans.

Bibliography

Aburdene, P., & Naisbitt, J. (1992). Megatrends for Women. New York: Villard Books.

Harris, S. (1980), quoted in Kramarae C., & Treichler P.A. (1985). A Feminist Dictionary. London: Pandora Press, p. 50.

Steinem, G. (1983), quoted in Kramarae C., & Treichler, P.A. (1985). A Feminist Dictionary. London: Pandora Press, p. 50.

Milojević, I. (1998). Learning from feminist futures. In D. Hicks & R. A. Slaughter (Eds.), 1998 World Yearbook for Education (pp. 83–95). London: Kogan Page.

Wikipedia, on-line encyclopaedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Seven Positive Trends Amidst the Doom and Gloom (2012)

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By Sohail Inayatullah

January 06, 2012

While there is a great deal of bad, indeed, horrendous, news in the world ­- global warming, terrorism, the global financial crisis, water shortages, worsening inequity – ­there are also signs of positive change.

GENOMICS

First, in genomics, the revolution of tailoring health advice has begun. Among other websites, www.23andme.com provides detailed personal genetic information to consumers. It provides, “the latest research on how your genes may affect risk for common diseases and conditions such as heart attack, arthritis and cancers.” Once your genome is analyzed, you will also be able to “see your personal history through a new lens with detailed information about your ancient ancestors and comparisons to global populations today.” This development in genomics is good news in that more

information about your personal health future is available. Of course, these are just probabilities and should be used wisely, helping each person make better health choices today. Avoiding creating self­fulfilling prophecies of potential future illnesses would be a priority in teaching individuals to understand their genome map. Bringing wisdom to more information is crucial especially given forecasts that within 10 years every baby will be given a complete genome map at birth.

MEDITATION

Second, there is positive news in meditation research. Study after study confirms that meditation is not only of individual benefit but as national health expenditures keep on increasing (because of increased demand from an aging population) along with exercise, low­fat vegetarian food and a close community, meditation as part of a national health strategy can reduce public health costs. For example, we know that studies show that regular meditators exhibit: 87% less heart disease, 55.4% less tumors, 50.2% less hospitalization, 30.6% less mental disorders and 30.4% less infectious diseases (Matthew Bambling, Mind, Body and Heart, Psychotherapy in Australia, February 2006, 52­59). There are even reports on the benefits of meditation for military care providers, not a sector known for spiritual development. Meditation even changes the nature of the brain. Researchers at Harvard, Yale and MIT have found that brain scans reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that dealt with attention and processing sensory input. The structure of the adult brain can thus change, suggests the research. Indeed, research as well suggests that through meditation we can train ourselves to be more compassionate toward others. It appears that cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples’ mental states, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin­ in Madison.

While we have had anecdotal evidence of the importance of meditation, developments in MRI scanning have taken the research to new levels providing us with visual and repeatable (scientific) evidence.

SPIRITUALITY

Third, we are witnessing a rise in the significance of spirituality as a worldview and as a practice. Spirituality is defined broadly as a practice that brings inner peace and love for self and the transcendent as well as being inclusive of others, that is, it does not claim to be exclusive or in a hierarchy of who is above and who is below. In their book, The Cultural Creatives, Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson go so far as to say that up to 25% of those in OECD nations now subscribe to a new worldview with spirituality as a central feature. Overtime this worldview will likely have increasingly tangible impacts on economic, transport and governance systems.

In their book, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, Ian Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton found “spirituality as one of the most important determinants of performance.” Of the 200 companies surveyed, sixty percent believed that spirituality was a benefit provided no particular view of religion was pushed. Georgeanne Lamont’s research in the UK at ‘soul­friendly’ companies ­ including Happy Computers, Bayer UK, Natwest, Microsoft UK, Scott Bader, Peach Personnel ­ found lower than average absenteeism, sickness and staff turnover ­ which saved the businesses money. In one example, Broadway Tyres introduced spiritual practices and absenteeism dropped from twenty­five/thirty percent to two percent.

And: research shows a positive correlation between spiritual organisations and the bottom line ­ organisations that can inspire employees to a ‘higher cause’ tend to have enhanced performance because of the increased motivation and commitment this tends to generate.

HEALTHY AND GREEN CITIES

Fourth, we are seeing that while many problems are too big for national governments, local governance is thriving. Many cities are taking the future to heart. In Australia for example, Future 2030 city projects are slowly becoming part of the norm (Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Logan City, for example). Cities are broadening democracy to include visioning. Citizens are asked about their desired image of their city – transport, skyline, design, and community – and are working with political leaders and professional staff to create their desired futures. This leads not only to cities changing in directions citizens authentically prefer, but it enhances the capacity of citizens to make a difference. Democracy becomes not only strengthened but the long­term becomes part of decision­ making – a type of anticipatory democracy is being created. Those politicians who prefer to keep power to themselves and not engage in the visioning tend to be booted out, suggests some research (Steve Gould, Creating Alternative Community Futures. MA thesis, University of the Sunshine Coast, 2009).

And what type of futures do citizens prefer? They tend to want more green (gardens on rooftops, for example), far less cars (more public transport), technology embedded in their day­ to­ day lives ­ a seamless integration of nature, the built environment and high technologies – and far more community spaces. They want to work from home, and many imagine new community centres where people of different professions can work individually but also share costs (and avoid loneliness). Imagine the savings in transport costs as well as greenhouse gas emissions. And time! Instead of expensive new infrastructure, creating flexible home­work­community­time options could save billions, not to mention no longer being stuck in traffic jams.

On a practical level, solid social science research demonstrates that cities can develop policies that enhance public health. For example in Australia, the Rockhampton 10,000 steps program has attempted to enhance the physical activity of citizens. Given the volumes of epidemiological evidence that show that regular physical activity promotes and improves health in endless ways, active health is a great best buy.

But it is not just physical health that planners are beginning to consider but psychological health. Research shows that green spaces in a city have a pronounced affect on the emotional health of residents, and the higher the biodiversity of green spaces, the more benefits. Thus, keeping green spaces helps in promoting physical and mental health. Enhancing green spaces can also reduce drought as there is considerable evidence that the suburban/strip mall model of development blocks billions of gallons of rainwater from seeping through the soil to replenish ground water (Tom Doggett, “Suburban Sprawl Blocks Water, Worsens U.S. Drought,” Aug 28, 2002, www.reuters.com).

As part of this rethinking of the city, planners are starting to see transport alternatives as being linked to community health. For example, we now know that air pollution is linked to heart disease, that is, clogged roads lead to clogged arteries (the amount of time spent in traffic increases the risk of heart disease. And if they do not design for health, most likely citizens who have been hospitalized will litigate against city officials for not designing cities for well­being.

NEW MEASUREMENTS

Fifth, nations, cities, corporations and non­governmental organizations are creating new ways of measuring their success. While earlier indicators of progress were all about the dollar, now triple bottom line measurements have taken off, and will continue to do so in the future. Instead of only measuring the single bottom line of profit, impacts on nature (sustainability) and on society (social inclusion) are becoming increasingly important, even in this financial crisis. One Australia city has even followed the example of Bhutan and developed a National Happiness index.

This enlargement of what counts as the bottom line is occurring because more and more evidence points to the fact that the economy rests on society which rests on nature. All three have to do well for us to survive and thrive, to move toward individual and collective happiness. Focus on one works in the short run but in the long run having a dynamic balance works best. Even the President of the European Commission, Manuel Barroso, has argued that it is time to go beyond GDP, as this traditional indicator only measures market activity, and not well­being. Says, Barroso, writing about GDP, “We cannot face the challenges of the future with the tools of the past.” Confirming this new approach, Hans­Gert Pöttering, the President of the European Parliament writes that: “well­being is not just growth; it is also health, environment, spirit and culture.” There are now even calls for spirituality to become the fourth bottom line.

PEER­-TO-­PEER AND SOCIAL NETWORKING

Sixth, while there are many benefits of the Information and Communication Technologies revolution, one of the key positive outcomes is the development of peer-­to­-peer power. Traditional hierarchical relations – top down models of relating to each other – are being challenged. And while it is far too early to say the dominator model of social relations will disappear in this generation, slowly over time there are indications that there will be far more balance in emerging futures. Hierarchy will become only one of the ways we engage with each other; the role of partnerships (through cooperatives) will continue to increase as new social technologies via the web make that possible. For example, already wikipedia has challenged traditional modes of knowledge authority. Websites such as kiva.org allow – though at a small level – direct person to person lending. This could have dramatic impacts on the big banks over time. Social peer­to­peer networking also reduces the ability of authoritarian states to use information communication technologies for surveillance benefits. Power moves from rigid hierarchies to far more fluid and socially inventive networks.

With more information available exponentially, the challenge will be to use information about our genome, our inner lives, and our localities in ways that empower and create harmony. New technologies such as the bodybugg and overtime health and eco­bots will help a great deal as they will give us immediate, interactive and tailored information on the futures we wish for (as does the newly invented smart toilet with its likely web links to http://asnu.com.au/viagra-online/ health providers. Health and eco­bots will be able to help us decide which products to buy (do they fit into my value structure, are they triple or quadruple bottom line), how much and how long to exercise and through social networking, enlist communities of support to help achieve desired futures.

HAPPINESS IS VIRAL

Seventh, finally, all the good news is infectious. Harvard social scientist Nicholas Christakis and his political­science colleague James Fowler at the University of California at San Diego argue “that emotions can pass among a network of people up to three degrees of separation away, so your joy may be [partly] determined by how cheerful your friends’ friends are, even if some of the people in this chain are total strangers to you. This means that health and happiness is not just created by individual behavior but by how they feed into the larger social network (Alice Park, “The Happiness Effect,” Time, Dec. 11, 2008). Happiness can be seen as viral; what the Indian mystic P.R. Sarkar has called the Microvita Effect.

All this does not mean we should dismiss attempts to transform social injustice but we need to appreciate how far we have come and focus on ways to improve material, intellectual and spiritual reality.

Positive steps forward can create more positive futures, for individuals and for societies.

Professor Sohail Inayatullah is a political scientist/futurist at the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, Tamkang University, Taiwan; and the Centre of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, Macquarie University, Sydney. He also an associate with Mt Eliza Executive Education, Melbourne Business School, where he co-teaches a bi-annual course titled, “Futures thinking and strategy development.”

Syria Scenarios: Thoughts on Transcending Violence (2012)

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By Ivana Milojević

Syria Scenarios
1. Continuation of a totalitarian state/crackdown. President Bashar al-Assads’ regime continues, maintained by the security forces use of violence, repression and bloodshed also continue. This is reminiscent of 2009-2011 Iran or 1992 Algeria. This scenario will also lead to Syria’s international isolation and the impoverishment of the Syrian population. The scenario relies on power based methods used by the regime. It is likely short-term, but unlikely long-term, because it can be expected that it will ultimately create some implosion within the regime itself (i.e. internal coup).
2. Transition to a western style democracy. Removal of current regime (perhaps violent overthrow of the current leader/leadership, Iraq-Egypt-Libya style or a removal by local groups currently militarily fighting the regime), via a combination of non-physical sanctions and military intervention, support of the opposition, rebel fighting groups, followed by the reform of the security sector and state institutions. This scenario also relies on power based methods, used by the international community and local groups such as the Free Syrian Army. Within this scenario diplomatic efforts by the Syrian National Council and Friends of Syria Group extend further. This scenario is likely.
3. Transcend solution. Transition to a federation, local autonomy, Sunnis/Shias-Alawis, Christian and Kurds autonomy and networking across the borders, international/UN peacekeeping, protection of religious and ethnic minorities, no foreign bases and flows of arms, utilisation of local peace-keeping and peace-building initiatives. This scenarios relies on interest/needs based methods used by both local and international groups. Unlikely short-term, necessary long-term.
4. Chaos/spreading of war. Dispersal of violent conflict into Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan; mass migration of refugees into Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. This scenario relies on randomness, ad/hoc and chance based methods. Also possible within this scenario is war by proxy, i.e. involvement of regional stakeholders supporting various factions within Syria. Some aspects of this scenario are likely, but a whole scale spreading of war into other states is unlikely at this stage.

Stakeholders
Citizens of Syria, Bashar al-Assads’ regime, Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party and minor parties in the coalition (National Progressive Front), (illegal) Kurdish political parties, Military of Syria, Syrian opposition – Syrian National Council, rebel forces, governors of muafazat (administrative divisions), local human-rights groups/civil society, religious groups and their leaders, International community (UN security council, The Arab League, GAFTA, state-based governments, militaries, Friends of Syria group, human-rights organisations).

Analysis and policy advice based on four scenarios
Without an acceptable exit strategy Bashar al-Assads’ regime is highly unlikely to be motivated to negotiate and arrest the current extreme violence and repression. It is also less likely they will agree to negotiate with groups that are currently using violent methods aimed at overturning the regime. The regime’s main political goal is to remain in power. Their main need is to survive and to not be humiliated. The investigation into finding possible allies within the current regime and security forces should be seriously considered. ‘Softer’ elements of this group should be sought. These groups are more likely to negotiate with groups that are currently not killing or injuring their associates. In order to locate these ‘softer’ individuals (more interested in compromising and negotiating), local/regional groups (political analysts, journalists, civil society, religious leaders) and the Syrian opposition (Syrian National Council) as well as the international community (The Arab League, GAFTA, Friends of Syria group and various human-rights organisation) should be consulted. The goal is to find allies within the regime itself, those who can perhaps influence negotiation between harder elements of the regime and the international community. These individuals/groups can also provide further advice on acceptable ‘exit strategy’ for the regime. As well, as the regime counts on the continuous support of China and Russia to veto the UN security council decisions, and perhaps even provide other types of support (including military one), the role of diplomats of these countries may also prove vital in negotiating potential exist strategy for the regime.

International community is already involved, and it is highly likely that it will continue to enhance this involvement. Therefore, Continuation of a totalitarian state/crackdown, which relies on no further external involvement, though likely in the short-term, is highly unlikely in the long-term. Preparations for the type of involvement should thus be enhanced. The most likely scenario for the international community’s involvement is Transition to a western style democracy. This scenario is highly costly and can potentially backfire. Any military intervention is going to create a humanitarian deterioration and increase already the high number of deaths in Syria. If the scenario comes into being largely via military involvement it can potentially facilitate the emergence of a protracted conflict, entrenchment of the regime, later retribution within Syria and against external nation-states and their citizens involved. There is also a danger of the violent conflict spreading and becoming regional. Other dangers involved with this scenario are the financial costs to the international community if military involvement is long-lasting, and, once embarked upon, it is highly likely that it will be. Further to this, new grievances and injustices may be created in the process, i.e. support of the opposition parties/stakeholders who may replace one injustice-violence-repression with an another one (ethnic cleansing, insurgence, legitimising criminal elements, increase in fundamentalism, breakup of areas, sectarianism). The Chaos/spreading of war scenario can be prevented via selective use of peace-keeping operations, the goal of which would be maintenance of negative peace (the absence of direct, physical violence and destruction). Cooperation between the UN peacekeeping forces and local governments’ security forces is needed if the likelihood of this scenario increases (some aspects of this scenario are already happening, i.e. situation in Lebanon, although whole scale spreading of war into other states is at this stage still unlikely). The Transcend solution scenario relies on proposing alternatives that are meeting the needs of all involved, are sustainable in the long(er) term, are creatively disembodying conflict from the current dynamics and into visions of desired/preferable futures. The premise within this scenario is that the more alternatives are outlined the less likely is the violent outcome. Some of these alternatives may include: 1) Involvement of as many stakeholders in decision-making processes as possible (including civil society/ NGOs/ humanitarian organizations, business leaders, prominent organisations and religious community groups); 2) Work on consensus between the majority of the Arab league, Turkey and Western nations on one side and Iran, Russia and China on the other, in regards to the initiatives based on the International law (i.e. UNGA Resolution 2625) and nonviolence; 3) Proposal for the amnesty for Ba’ath Party members and security forces, with the exception of top political leadership and those directly involved in mass killings; 4) The Establishment of truth and reconciliation commission; 5) The Establishment of mechanisms for local control of oil industry and oil exports; 6) The Establishment of mechanisms for protection of minorities, human rights in general and women’s rights in particular; 7) The Prevention of widespread retributions against Alawite community; 8) Support for Syria to join WTO and consider re-joining GATT; 9) Enhancement of humanitarian aid efforts, provision of access for humanitarian organisation; 10) Support for de-militarisation initiatives, 11) Gradual transition to a new, more open and democratic society coupled with national reconciliation, 12) The unification of the opposition around the principles of nonviolence and explicitly outlined vision of desired future, and 13) Making clear that any group that uses violence will not receive any support by the international community. The Transcend solution initiatives are necessary for long-term conflict resolution in Syria, but may be difficult to implement in the short-term. Nonetheless, they should be attempted, either as the main set of strategies or in some combination with the initiatives outlined within previous scenarios. In any scenario, arming of the opposition would not be advisable, given that it may increase death toll among the civilian population. Work on peaceful negotiated settlement with as many local and global stakeholders is the most preferable.

The Futures of the University: Wikipedia Uni, Core-periphery Reversed, Incremental Managerialism or Bliss for All? (2011)

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By Sohail Inayatullah

 

ABSTRACT

This article explores the alternative futures of the university. After a review of critical drivers identified a decade ago in the book, the University in Transformation, three scenarios are presented. They are: Wikipedia Uni; Core-Periphery reversed and Incremental managerialism. In this last scenario, three zones of change are discussed: (1) zone of elite universities, (2) zone of mass education and (3) zone of experimentation. A final scenario, Bliss for all, the world as a university, is suggested in the conclusion. However, while we have the technology to create such a future, we currently do not have the collective wisdom – at best, bliss for the few is more likely.

In the University in Transformation [1], an anthology of articles on the futures of the university published 10 years ago, we – Jennifer Gidley and I – identified four critical drivers creating the futures of the university. In this essay, the drivers are reviewed and assessed as to how likely they are to continue to shape the plausible futures of the university. The essay concludes with alternative university scenarios.

GLOBALIZATION OF EDUCATION

The first driver identified was globalization, in its current neo-liberal form (and there are many types of globalization – spiritual, ecological/gaian, and utopian, for example), defining has been a resistance by states to continue to subsidize education [2]. This has meant a policy shift from considering education less as an investment and more as a cost [3]. Specifically it has led to categorizing parts of higher education as an export (in Australia, for example, in Brisbane [4] and Melbourne [5], education is the largest export, surpassing tourism) and aspects as an expense. The export-based curriculum areas– seeking to bring in students from the Asia-Pacific, particularly India – tend to be in the “real-world” areas of engineering, business, information technologies and vocational studies. When they are linked to immigration policy [6] they have especially grown, while other areas of knowledge such as philosophy and even languages, have been subjected to current market forces and cutbacks and thus have declined. Indeed, in the context of the continuing global financial crisis, just recently the Australian government announced that entry requirements would be relaxed for students wishing to study in Australia. As well, post-study work rights would be enhanced. [7]

The overall reason for education – as a civilizing force, as part of humanity’s treasure, as a long term investment in children, and as a right to dissent against the prevailing paradigm- has been put aside for shorter term market concerns. In the last ten years, this trend – and the drivers creating it – has not subsided but intensified.

These trends are likely to continue. What is likely to change is the direction of the exports. With the rise of Chindia [8], we can easily imagine a future where Chinese and Indian students stay at home, learning from local outposts of Western universities [9] as well as Chindia’s own educational institutions. Over a period of twenty years we can imagine Western students moving to the Asia-Pacific for higher education (and not only for language learning). While this may seem difficult to imagine now, if we go back twenty years, it would have been difficult to imagine the colossal economic rise of China (foreign reserves at 3.2 trillion dollars in 2011) [10], East Asia (for the first time Asia has more millionaires than Europe) [11,12] and segments of India. [13] Education for Chindia and much of East Asia remains an investment. Not a cost.

VIRTUALIZATION

The second trend identified was the virtualization of education. With fewer funds available for bricks and mortar and the logic of increasing the number of students, ministries of education and universities (led by India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea, China and other Asian nations) [14] have focused on using the Web to deliver education. While the savings are high – indeed, in the USA, one university , National Louis University, has even used the “Groupon” approach, offering a discount when at least fifteen people had signed up for the course [15]- and outreach stunning, what has partially hampered the success of distance delivery has been the mindset of university administrators and academics. They still remain in the expert-driven feudal model. That said, new applications; indeed, “an app for everything” is the new analogy for the futures of instruction. New applications are changing the nature of pedagogy and with exponential technological advancement we can see virtual becoming more like face-to-face. Costs will continue to go down (and climate change/peak oil/security concerns are likely to provide further incentives to virtualise). Innovation will continue to find ways for academics and students to become more comfortable in future virtualised “classrooms”. Over the long term the current distinctions between virtual and real will likely disappear and we, particularly digital [16] and genomic natives (the double-helix children), will become comfortable with different types of reality.

DEMOCRATIZATION – PEER TO PEER

The third trend identified was the democratization of education. By this we meant enhanced student participation as well as a flattening generally of the university. Over the last ten years, this has occurred but not expected. The peer to peer web platform has been the greatest flattening process – from Wikipedia to Wikileaks to www.ratemyprofessor.com.[1]

However, and this is crucial, democratization while partially recreating who creates knowledge, has not empowered students or academics in formal university or high school settings. The opposite has occurred. First, there has been a backlash against increased power of those below – a desire to return to the good old days of dominator authority. Second, as universities have adopted the neo-liberal globalization model, creating profits or merely surviving has meant retiring expensive professors and hiring cheaper younger PhDs. And, critically, the hiring has not been “full-time” but casual (no tenure, payment per course, no office space). In Australia,” casualization” is now 60% of the higher education workforce. [18] Comments Robin May who is currently completing her PhD on the university workforce. “You lead a very uncertain life being casual…you are literally hired by the hour, resulting in disengagement from the regular university life.” [19] Comparing the university to the garment industry, Patricia Kelly calls casual lecturers “piece workers of the mind” [20] And this is not a surprise. Globalization in its neoliberal variant “happens in an environment that is increasingly hierarchical, unequal, and insecure,” and it is gendered, women bear the brunt of inequity.[21] Experimental courses (new web courses, in particular) especially futures studies, gender studies and peace studies for example – have emerged by paying academics near volunteer wages. For those at the bottom pay scale, the problem becomes that of loyalty not just to the particular university (“why should I stay loyal when I am paid peanuts”) but to the university model of education itself, that is, “why should I not globalize myself and receive the benefits of globalization.” As loyalty breaks down we can anticipate far more innovation in the tertiary sector. This could include new academic run cooperative universities and alternative universities (with either particular ideological leanings or broader missions) attracting younger academics along different career trajectories. Along with some able to innovate, there will be many who will prefer, rightly, if not wisely, a politics of grievance in the university itself. As cutbacks continue, we can anticipate a far more challenging labor environment.

Returning to the good old days where education was a fully subsidized by the nation-state is currently unlikely but this does not necessarily mean retreating from the dignity of the academic and the nobility of the academic profession. Alternative futures are possible. For elite professors, the physical university and particular university branding will be far less important. In terms of phases, a possible trajectory would be from the lower run casual academic to the traditional tenure track academic to a portfolio academic approach (being linked to a number of universities) and finally to a model wherein the Professor becomes a brand unto him or herself. In each phase, agency is enhanced and the weight of structure reduced.

WAYS OF KNOWING – KNOWLEDGE ON THE EDGES

Our fourth driver or trend was multiculturalism in terms of new ways of knowing becoming an acceptable as part of pedagogy [22, 23, 24, 25]. There is no easy way to measure this but certainly the rise of the web with multiple languages and platforms has created more spaces then traditional hierarchies of knowledge. The rise of Chindia is slowly changing the game as well. But far more impressive has been technology itself as a way of mediating reality. We imagined far more diversity in knowledge regimes – indigenous ways of knowing, spirituality, integrated models of understanding. While these continue to mushroom, it is technology as a way of knowing that has been the disruptive, if not transformative, factor. With at least five billion [26] mobile phones now in global circulation and 6.07 billion estimated by the end of 2011 [27] and more of these becoming smart, pedagogy will keep on jumping the boundaries of the real into the differently real.

THE DISRUPTION

As always, leaving behind factory models of learning and teaching will be crucial as we move to a more 24/7 virtualized and globalized world. Focusing on ensuring equity and life wide and life long learning for those academics who do not become brands unto themselves or have portfolio careers, will be critical in the quest toward educational equity.

And, if national accreditation does break down or become porous, the 2.5 plus trillion dollar education industry [28] will be ripe for a major creative destruction. It will likely not be Google, Wikipedia or Facebook that will become the new Nalanda, Nanjing, Al-Azhar, Al Karaouine, Bologna, or Oxford or ….but someone else who will create the new platform for the pedagogies of the future. Is it wiser for nation-states to hold on to national accreditation, to regionalize as with the EU (and future Asian Union), or attempt to create something truly novel and lead the world by creating an institutional jump? Or…?

ALTERNATIVE FUTURES

These questions are best answered through a description of alternate higher educational futures. Three futures are suggested. They are: Wikipedia Uni, Core-periphery reversed and Incremental managerialism.

WIKIPEDIA UNIVERSITY

In the first scenario, two shifts are central. First is a far greater flattening of the university – its structure as well as who teaches and the nature of teaching. While this future includes tremendous global educational diversity, one apt phrase is “the return of Bologna.” In the original University of Bologna model, students hired the professors. Instructors even needed permission to leave the city. The second shift is the reduction or elimination of national accreditation by a select group of nations. While many nations refuse to follow – citing national security, economic development and fear of being overwhelmed by new wealthy corporate entrants –  a few nations still experiment.

Porous national accreditation creates a major disruption leading to a social ecology of flatter global universities. The result is essentially Wikipedia University. There is still room for elite professors who ensure quality control as well as providing prestige. Dominator hierarchy is replaced by functional hierarchy. Quality gains are dramatic as the wisdom of the crowds, plus guidance by elite professors who are induced by salaries and innovation,   lead the way. Income is generated through student fees and advertising on software and hardware applications. Large corporate information providers such as Google jump in. Apple and Android applications play a dramatic role in localizing the global Wikipedia University. Application developers migrate in droves to this new educational platform. New technologies develop that make virtual feel more and more similar to face-to-face. These include holograms and group sharing of information (Cloud 2.0), beyond our current understandings – learning becomes dynamic and evolves quickly.

This does not mean that space for traditional universities disappears. If anything this world is characterized, particularly in the first 20 years, as a social ecology in flux. However, the dinosaurs are the traditional universities. The ability to adapt, determine the nature of the new ecological landscape, reinvent one’s core functions, allow for emergence, and allow stakeholders – students, in particular – to help mould the emerging future is a great advantage. Traditional universities are unwilling to adapt and do not use stakeholders to create, as they see themselves as the experts, indeed, they are even unable to notice that they exist in a rapidly changing knowledge social ecology.

By 2050, the feudal nature of university education is finally overthrown and along with it the factory model of learning. Universities by 2050 are unrecognizable to the visitor from the 20th century.

CORE-PERIPHERY REVERSED

In the second scenario, core-periphery relations are reversed.[29, 30] Phase one of this is currently occurring in China and India with the reverse brain drain. Phase two is the massive investments in education in China in particular, but Asia generally (Japan, Singapore, South Korea, India, for example). Over time, research leads to a positive and creative innovation cycle. [31] China, already, in 2011 is poised to become the world’s patent leader. [32, 33] In the future, tired of rising student fees in the West, and many local Asian success stories, Asian students stay “home” and European and American students join them. Initially this is in the areas of business, science and languages but gradually other fields also become major exports. As the Asian Union moves from only East Asian nations- the Chinese Diaspora – to include other still developing nations, Asia becomes an educational powerhouse. An Asian credit transfer regime is created, similar to the EU Bologna process. [34] Traditional rote learning paradigms for students and factory model pedagogy from Professors is replaced by diverse learning styles. Elite Western professors flock to Asia for the higher salaries. The West begins to experience their own brain drain as students and academic flock to the Asia-Pacific. However, hubris in the West does not allow strategic reactions until too late. Of course, many western universities already have local branches throughout Asia, but these are bought by large Asian universities seeking to export their services back to the empire. By 2050 Asian universities have branch campuses throughout Europe, Australia, and even the United States. Success creates success. Innovation creates Innovation. Power creates reality.

INCREMENTAL MANAGERIALISM – BUSINESS AS USUAL

In this third future, innovations in web 2.0 and beyond (web 3.0: mobile, holograms), globalization, flattening (democratization) and the rise of Asia do not dramatically change the nature of the university. There is incremental change but this does not lead to a tipping over to a new future. Yes, more Asian universities rise in global rankings. Yes, there is far more delivery over the web. Yes, mobility becomes central to pedagogy. Yes, universities accommodate globalization and states reduce investment in them except for courses that bring in export earnings. Yes, many universities become more sustainable changing how they use energy and redesigning curriculum to be climate change and Gaia sensitive. Yes, a world green campus ranking takes off (green metrics). [35, 36] And yes, globo sapiens [37] and cultural creatives [38, 39] gain in strength, and intelligence [40] becomes far more integrated. But over time, the university’s one thousand year conservative tradition continues. Cautious deans are proven correct: squeeze below, attract high paying students, remain connected to the alumni and find expert researchers who can bring in large dollar grants. Three zones emerge: (1) the zone of elite universities that have historical brand recognition- high fees, huge endowments and alumni networks. The world’s leading thought leaders continue to be associated with them. With vast funds, they remains above the market, seeing education as part of civil society, as a human right. (2) The zone of mass education. While this becomes more and more Asia based – demographic dividends in terms of the ratio of young people to old – life long and life wide (formal and informal and creative mixes) learning in the West allows Western universities to grow as well. (3) The zone of experimentation. Even within business-as-usual world, niche universities continue to thrive. Technological and economic disruptions and value changes create spaces for new entrants but only in niche areas. These include Islamic universities or programs teaching Islamic banking, for example, not to mention the new ecological – gardens in universities and universities in gardens – knowledge centres. Some of these experiments move to the mass market and become routinised while others stay on the cutting edge, challenging the current paradigm.

WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION?

There are other possible futures as well. In the University in Transformation, we suggested “Bliss for all” as an idealistic scenario – the world as not just a connected brain but the world as mind. In this future, education is truly for all and the planet becomes not just a complex adaptive learning organization but a healing network as well – learning for ananda/bliss. [1] However, in 2011, while the technology for a world brain appears nearer, the wisdom for a world mind-heart appears further. At best, bliss for the few.

And which future will eventuate? This is the wrong question. Which future does my university desire to create? What support – intellectual, technological, humans and values – do we need to create this desired future? And finally: in a changing social ecology, what and where do we maintain and sustain and what and where do we innovate and transform

 

NOTES

[1] Anecdotally, I remember well one foresight workshop I facilitated in November 2009 in Singapore for Raffles Institution with forty 14 year olds. All of them frequently used Wikipedia, and over 50% claimed to have contributed content to Wikipedia. A few – one or two – had heard of Encyclopedia Britannica. Most had heard of the United Kingdom. And according to a study by the scientific journal Nature, the level of errors is similar. [17] However, Wikipedia articles can be corrected swiftly, while Encyclopedia Britannica takes substantially longer.

 

REFERENCES

[1] S. Inayatullah and J. Gidley (Eds.), The University in Transformation: Global perspectives on the futures of the university. Wesport, Ct, Bergin and Gravey, 2000.

[2] J. Odin and P. Manicas (Eds.), Globalization and Higher Education. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2004.

[3] Magna Charta Observatory, Crisis, cuts, contemplations: How academia may help rescuing society, Proceedings of the conference of the Magna Charta Observatory 17-18 September 2009. Damini, Bologna, 2010.

[4] http://www.brisbanemarketing.com.au/media/Media-Release.aspx?id=807&returnurl=~/Media/Media-Releases.aspx (accessed 4 January 2011).

[5] http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/pwc-mi-asialink/2009/default.html (accessed 4 January 2011).

[6] http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-yarra-monster-is-killing-us-20100822-13apt.html (accessed 4 January 2011).

[7] Fleur Anderson and Joanne Mather, Rules eased on student visas. The Australian Financial Review. 23, September 2011, 11.

[8] http://www.smh.com.au/business/chindia–you-aint-seen-nuthin-yet-20100923-15o2v.html (accessed 4 January 2011). For a more skeptical view, see S. Tharoor, A Chindia world. Deccan Chronicle 24 December 2010. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/dc-comment/chindia-world-412 (accessed 24 January 2011).

[9] NYU to open 1st American campus in Shanghai http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/culture/2011-01/21/c_13701018.htm (accessed 24 January 2011).

[10] Jamal Anderlini, China’s foreign reserves rise by $194bn. Financial Times. Ft.com.http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/96d6d02c-d683-11df-81f0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1A2M3mIGA (accessed 4 January 2011).

[11] Rand Corporation. Domestic Trends in the USA, China and Iran. www.rand.org (accessed 4 January 2011).

[12] http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Asia-Pacific_millionaires_worth_more_than_Europeans_study_999.html

(accessed 4 January 2011).

[13] S. Tharoor, The Elephant, the tiger and the cell phone: Reflections on India, the emerging 21st – century power. New York, Arcade Publishing, 2007.

[14] http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/inet/1999/ExeSum.html (accessed 4 January 2011).

[15] http://www.psfk.com/2011/09/university-uses-groupon-to-attract-new-students.html (accessed 29 September 2011).

[16] For more on this, see the work of M. Prensky, www.markprensky.com (accessed 24 January 2011).

[17] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html Accessed 29 9 2011. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/12/69844. Wikipedia, Brittanica: a toss up. (Accessed 29 9 2011).

[18] B. Luyt et al, Young people’s perceptions and usage of Wikipedia. Information research. 13(4) December 2008. http://informationr.net/ir/13-4/paper377.html (accessed 5 January 2011).

[19] S. Whyte, Aging academics set university time bomb. The Sydney Morning Herald 16 January 2011. http://www.smh.com.au/national/ageing-academics-set-university-timebomb-20110115-19ry1.html (accessed 24 January 2011).

[20] P. Kelly. Personal communications. 25 January 2011. pakelly@westnet.com.au.

[21] I. Milojevic, A critique of globalization: Not just a white man’s world in J. Dator, D. Pratt and Y. Seo (Eds.), Fairness, globalization and public institutions. University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2006, 82. For a feminist view on educational futures, see I. Milojevic, Educational futures: Dominant and contesting visions, Routledge, London, 2005.

[22] S.Inayatullah, M.Bussey and I. Milojevic (Eds.), Neohumanistic educational Futures. Tamkang University, Tamsui, 2006.

[23] M. Bussey, S. Inayatullah and I. Milojevic (Eds.), Alternative educational futures. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2008.

[24] Z. Sardar (Ed.) Rescuing all of our futures. Praeger 21st Century Studies. Twickenham, England, 1999.

[25] R. Sidhu, Universities and globalization: To market, to market, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. New Jersey, 2004.

[26] Jagdish Rebello, Global wireless subscriptions reach 5 billion. September 17, 2010. http://www.isuppli.com/Mobile-and-Wireless-Communications/News/Pages/Global-Wireless-Subscriptions-Reach-5-Billion.aspx.Accessed (accessed 4 January 2011).

[27] Syed Talal, Global mobile subscribers to cross 6 billion, Pakistan ranks 9th. http://tribune.com.pk/story/256342/global-mobile-subscribers-to-cross-6-billion-pakistan-ranks-9th/ (accessed 8 October 2011).

[28]Education is a 2.5 trillion dollar globally. http://www.edarabia.com/15179/education-is-a-2-5-trillion-business-globally/ (accessed 9 October 2011).

[29] US Universities losing clout in global education market.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/us-universities-losing-cl_n_599112.html (accessed 4 January 2011).

[30] Lee Lawrence, US college degrees: Still the best among world’s top universities? The Christian Science Monitor -http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/304688 (accessed 4 January 2011).

[31] Particularly noteworthy is the futures research at the Universiti Sains Malaysia. See, University Sains Malaysia, Constructing higher education scenarios. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, 2007.

[32] Gordon Orr, Unleashing the Chinese inventor. The Wall Street Journal Asia. 28 December 2010.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704138604576030491764296296.html. (accessed 5 January 2011).

[33] China poised to become global innovation leader. http://thomsonreuters.com/content/press_room/legal/626670 (accessed 5 January 2011).

[34] M. Kelo Ed, The Future of the university: Translating Lisbon into practice. Lemmens, Bonn, 2006

[35] Nottingham celebrates world’s green campus ranking. BBC.com. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/nottingham/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9353000/9353883.stm (accessed 24 January 2011).

[36] UI GreenMetric world university ranking. http://greenmetric.ui.ac.id/ (Accessed 8 October 2011)

[37] P. Kelly, Toward globo sapiens: Transforming learners in higher education, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2008.

[38] P. Ray and S. Anderson, The Cultural creatives. New York, Random House, 2000. https://www.wisdomuniversity.org/emerging-culture.htm (accessed 8 October 2011).

[39] H. Tibbs, Changing cultures values and the transition to sustainability, Journal of Futures Studies, 15 (3), 13-32.

[40] M. Anthony, Integrated intelligence: classical and contemporary depictions of mind and intelligence and their educational implications. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2008.

Global Award for Sunshine Coast Academic (2011)

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A UNIVERSITY of the Sunshine Coast adjunct professor who works to educate business, not-for-profit and government organisations on what the future holds has received a global award.

Professor Sohail Inayatullah received one of four 2010 Laurel Awards for all-time best futurists, after a vote by almost 3000 of his colleagues in the global Foresight Network.

Professor Sohail Inayatullah received one of four 2010 Laurel Awards for all-time best futurists, after a vote by almost 3000 of his colleagues in the global Foresight Network.

Professor Inayatullah, who has lived at Mooloolaba for the past decade but spends several months a year working internationally, recently consulted for a global cola drink company about changing health paradigms. This year, he will work with bodies including Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Pakistan Ministry of Commerce.

At USC, Professor Inayatullah has supervised PhD students on topics ranging from the futures of Queensland’s public service to foresight in Maroochy Shire to the changing nature of intelligence.

Futures studies involve activism, research and citizen visioning and intends to facilitate discussion between people who are experts in their fields about possible future outcomes and how these can be altered.

“It’s about empowering people in organisations to create better futures,” Professor Inayatullah said.

The Foresight Network membership includes future thinkers, strategists, change agents and policy makers from commercial, not-for-profit and governmental organisations.

The Sunshine Coast Daily
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/futurist-group-awards-prize-to-coast-academic/750975/

Mapping Futures Studies and Risk Analysis, Management and Communication (2010)

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Sohail Inayatullah

Professor, Tamkang University, Sunshine Coast University, Queensland University of Technology
www.metafuture.org

“I agree that it would be pleasant to walk on streets free of animal waste products. But can we be sure that the waste products of the automobile will be an improvement?”
Herman Cohn, The Social and Political Consequences of the Internal Combustion Engine. 1916.

Clearly no technology, social or material, spiritual or of this world, is without risk. Even though the Hare Krishna claim that they provide “After Life Insurance”, we cannot know until the time comes. And then it may be too late to transform. As the Buddha said on whether there was life after death, “First die, then see”. Of course, cryogenics and life extension from genetic engineering changes risk assessment.

Risk and Futures

This presentation will link approaches to risk with approaches to the study of the future. It concludes with comments on contending images of the future, and the risks associated with each.

To begin with, risk is central to thinking about the future; it is implicit in any statement about the future, however banal. This is especially so for risk defined as probability, i.e., what will happen – what is known as futuribles – the study of probablistics.

But it is also true for risk defined as consequences, what will happen if x occurs – that is, impact analysis.

But perhaps futures studies is best known for the warnings it gives – whether this is the Club of Rome’s classic Limits to Growth, Ravi Batra’s forecasts of economic depressions, or Alvin Toffler’s forecasts of the breakdown of industrial society – the ‘Second Wave’. These warnings are not just confined to the socio-economic but hark back to warnings and prophecies of the physical world as well. For example, writes Bill McGuire in A Guide to the End of the World, there are numerous dangers ahead of us. These include giant tsunamis, asteroid collisions (a 1km asteroid will cause a cosmic winter and kill a billion people), great quakes, volcanic super eruption (part of earth’s natural cycle) and global warming (which would mean some 5 billion people would be without adequate drinking water, and the death of the Great Barrier Reef by 2050 ). It is intriguing that vulcanologists die at the rate of almost one a year, peering into volcanoes.

Types of Futures Studies

Of course, futures studies is not just about prediction. However, that is clearly one dimension of it, and unfortunately, the dimension most well known.

This essentially assumes that:

  • The future can be predicted.
  • The universe is a closed system.
  • Current trends are generally problematic to change.
  • And that essentially, the issue is to better manage and thus control the future.

The real issue is the accuracy and precision of the prediction; less dominant is the validity of the assumptions upon which the predictions are based , or the reasons that those issues are the subject of predictions – that is, the issue of relevance.

In this mode of the future, risk is to be consumed. Risk becomes associated with fear.

The issue becomes how to understand the many codes of fear coming at us. Who to believe? Who to trust? And certainly, as pointed out by Paul Slovic, the experts and the ‘public’ disagree on these things. Experts rate the car the most dangerous and the people nuclear power plants. This of course raises the issue of risk communication and the worldview in which we enter conversations on the future.

Thus, predictions should not be seen outside the context of who makes them, when they are made, whom they are made to, why they are made, and the institutional relationships in which they are rendered intelligible.

Indeed, remembering Kafka, risk and fear and their future essentially force us into a postmodern burrow. As Mike Shapiro argues, our consciousness can be more of an enemy rather than an ally. We are no longer sure which forecasts can help us maneuver in this world, which forecasts will hurt our chances. Like the creature who digs a burrow to avoid a predator but who over time can no longer distinguish which sounds are simply its own digging and which the sounds of the predator, we can become lost. The problem of intelligibility does not go away.

But we are soothed by the media: fear is a big business. The fear of fat (fat as a risk criteria for heath disease and cancer) and now the fear of being stupid (with the rise of the smart state, the smart economy and smart nutraceuticals) makes fear essentially the way we know the world.

We thus need to move away from the surface of prediction to an analysis of meanings.

In this sense, a second dimension of futures studies is less an attempt to forecast the future and more an ethnographic understanding of the image of the future. What is desired? Does the way we imagine the future vary according to our gender or culture?

Perhaps such an approach is spreading risk, a means by which the future is not seen in univocal terms but rather as segmented. We live in different worlds and imagine different futures. We cannot know what is true, real and beautiful – and as genetics, postmodernism, multicultural, globalization, virtualism, feminism challenge these essentials, we are less sure of what we know and even what we don’t know (see Table 1). But we can inquire into difference and, understanding how the many see the future, we can move toward a map of what will be and what can be.

The future is thus less of a managerial predictive enterprise and more of a humanist one, searching for the good society, the eutopia, developing the social capacity for civilizational innovation. Using the future to transform today as opposed to using the future to reduce risk and thus gain strategic and competitive advantage.

This moves us to the third approach to the study of the future. This is the critical. In this approach, the future is contested, its categories made problematic. The future is seen in historical terms, as the victory of one way of seeing the world over others. The future that is hegemonic does need to be so. Forecasts are questioned, not for accuracy, but for validity. Why is nation-state risk assessment required, what is it about our world that we need to know which nations are ‘risky’. Isn’t the issue the transformation of the nation-state itself?

Scenarios, for example, are not constructed to be more robust or flexible but they are of use because they distance us from the present. The present is seen as impossible to change. By moving forward and backward in time, the present can be made problematic, remarkable, open to transformation, constructed by particular frameworks and choices.

The notion of choice brings us to the fourth approach: anticipatory action learning. The way to reduce risk is to create desired futures. This is done not in the bravado of world.com or Enron but in the slow and deliberative action of community consultation, of engaging others in how they see the world, what is of importance to them. The details of a scenario, often categorised into society, technology, economy, environment and politics (STEEP) are not assumed, rather the y–axis is developed by those creating the future. They contour within their own categories. The future is not given but made.

The future is created through doing. Mistakes in forecasts are not seen as disasters but as feedback loops. Learning develops by being sensitive and responsive to initial and future conditions – what we discover from complexity and chaos.

Essentially this is a plea for participation and a recognition that common sense is necessary for understanding the future. Experts are needed but they should be contextualized in the worldview they arrive in. All knowledge is, if not biased, then textured. However, this texture is not to be controlled for (as in the predictive), or made distant (as in the critical), but, like the interpretive, to be used to create a better future – texture is a necessary ingredient.

While this is a philosophical typology, it relates as well to the more practical task of how should one engage in thinking about the future.

From Forecasting to Depth

Single Point Forecasting:
As mentioned earlier, forecasting intends to get it right. The future is feared and thus the forecast must be accurate. Vertical organizations tend to use this approach.

And, of course, one may get it right from time to time, but over the long run, this is impossible, since human agency is an ingredient. Our forecasts should assume agency; that is, humans act to avoid certain futures and work diligently to create desired ones.

Alternative Futures

Since single point forecasting may not reduce risk, scenario planning has become the latest corporate flavour. Scenarios reduce uncertainty by clarifying alternatives, by clarifying assumptions, by clarifying probabilities. By describing alternative worlds, risk can be reduced. However, more often than not, corporations tend to desire scenarios that only differ marginally from ‘business as usual’. Alternatives are generally considered a waste of time.

However, one can develop scenarios and use them to test strategies, and, for example, use the strategy that is the most robust, that occurs as preferred or logical in each scenario.

The Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association (APMA) and the Insurers Manufacturing Association (IMA) have both used this approach. It can also be used for contingency planning or for developing divergence. As well, IMA has used it to develop products. Within each scenario, products can be teased out. These can then be tested in the market place.

However, merely having scenarios is not enough. In the APMA project, while the scenarios were presented to the government agency spearheading Australia’s role in developing the pharmaceutical industry, they were not seen as useful, since they provided alternatives while the Ministry responsible desired specific realizable results. The goals of the scenario project were to anticipate futures and prepare for unknown worlds and to use scenarios to become more adaptable. The government vision was that of developing a series of shared goals so that implementation could be made easier. Clearly this lack of shared methodology and final goal was crucial in the scenarios not being really used.

There are other crucial issues as well. In 1985, Charlie Schnabolk developed four scenarios for the risk associated with the World Trade Center:

(1) Predictable – bomb threats;
(2) Probable – bombing attempts, computer crime;
(3) Possible – hostage taking; and
(4) Catastrophic – aerial bombing, chemical agents in water supply or air-conditioning.

When asked in 2000 what the greatest threat to the WTC was, he responded: “Someone flying a plane into the building”.

The issue, then, is not just the development of scenarios, but how well they are communicated and how well understood.

Depth analysis

What scenarios also miss is the levels of analysis. Scenarios are excellent in reducing and mapping risk, and in extending breadth, but they miss depth.

For example, one could develop scenarios of the futures of quality and safety in health care. At a litany or superficial level, one can develop criteria for different types of medical experts who are more likely to commit mistakes. One can, however, go deeper and focus on the systemic issues; that is, move to the actor-invariant level. Does the system design lead to loss of life, resulting in a medical system that is https://www.chem-ecol.com/valium/ the third biggest cause of death? Is it the long hours, or lack of communication between personnel the crucial variable that leads to risks?

We can also go to a deeper level and begin to question not just the person or the system but the worldview underneath the enterprise – in what ways is allopathy itself the problem?. How does the vertical relations embedded in allopathy, with doctors unwilling to listen (they are the experts), create conditions that lead to increased patient risk? One can then examine quality and safety in other worldviews: alternative medicine, Chinese, or homeopathic, for example. But it would be a mistake to leave it at that. Risk reduction requires a conversation of worldviews, of questioning each worldview in the light of the others. Allopathy asking tough questions of homeopathy, and Chinese of Western. Bringing in divergence allows difference to create safety and health. Difference reduces risk by acknowledging the other, by seeing that each system has areas that it does not know, indeed, areas that it does not even know it does not know.

It is these assumptions that must be challenged.

For example, take Cisco. Cisco developed a brilliant real-time forecasting method. Ram Charan and Jerry Useem in their article for the May issue of Fortune magazine, ”Why companies fail” write:

Cisco, more than any other company, was supposed to be able to see into the future. The basis of this belief was the much vaunted IT system that enabled Cisco managers to track supply and demand in ‘real time’, allowing them to make pinpoint forecasts. This technology, by all accounts, worked great. The forecasts, however, did not. Cisco’s managers, it turned out, never bothered to model what would happen if a key assumption – growth – disappeared from the equation. (p. 50)

Even when things were looking bad, CEO John Chambers was still projecting 50% growth. He said: “I have never been more optimistic about the future of our industry as a whole or of Cisco”(ibid.).

Growth as a factor was not challenged because the deepest level of reality is unconscious and unavailable to us. Fish cannot see water and we cannot see the story we are living.
Stories and competing visions of the future
To see the story, either we need to move to other planets (and thus develop true comparative sociology and macrohistory) or we need to travel to the future, and thus imagine societies and worlds different from today. However, this is not science fiction as currently constituted. Current science fiction merely extrapolates the technological and the economic and thus imagines the Global-cyber world.

Social movements express what that story hides. They imagine a world of sustainability and sharing, planetary consciousness and spirituality. Each in effect becomes a mirror of the other. Of course, there are truly competing visions of the future, coming out in education (global-cyber versus green gender multicultural partnershp) or in transport (telecommuting versus public zero-emissions transport) or in governance (cyber anticipatory democracy or social movements and world governance) or in time (hyper and real time versus slow and spiritual time) and as foundational myths (Spaceship Earth versus Gaia). These images pull us to the future, much as trends such as ageing, genomics, multiculturalism, and ozone layer depletion push us to the future. As well, the weight of history arrests the possibility of system transformation.

Realist, Spaceship and Gaian Images of the Future

What does not compete, but what dominates remains the reality; that is, the nation-state oriented, strategic focused, male based, profit as bottom line world. It is, the Bush-Howard view of the future, where risk is collectively managed but the depth questions are not entered.

When alternative worlds are offered, they are seen as utopian (meaning unrealistic). But, if we take a critical and a depth view, every reality was once a utopia, an imagined world. And every utopia has a dark side, a dystopia. Of course, writes Ivana Milojeivc, having a dystopia is part of making a utopia real. Once both are present then the image has begun to gain credibility, credence. It has the possibility of supplanting the dominant vision of the future.

But returning to the main point, the foundational story is not accessible to those living it. They are in greatest risk if reality does change. This risk is not just financial but existential. Those who lived in former socialism, and believed in notions of quality, international brother- and sister-hood, and safe pensions, now live in emotional tatters. They have no image of the future. Their past has been denounced. Capitalism is a ghost, spirituality a ruse. There is nothing in the past or future. Agency is impossible for them.

What this means is that if one desires to enter and engage in the understandings of risk, merely seeing the exercise as risk management or even risk communication is likely to be unsatisfactory. Certainly writers like Mark Slovic who explore worldviews and risk are, I believe, on the right track since risk in their model is constructed by people’s wordviews and practices.

As he writes: “Risk management decisions will finally be a matter not of mathematics, but of judgement”. This means taking account of scientific and social information and applying what Slovic calls “reasoned thinking”:
Using our human faculties to the best effect. Risk decision makers must continually attend to building trust with stakeholders. They need to demonstrate the care, thoughtfulness and fairness of their decisions. It will not be enough to demonstrate that a decision is ‘scientific’- it also has to be shown that all values were considered.

I would go a step further and assert that: Risk is not out there in the real world, it is created by our imaginations. We constitute risk by who we are. Far more than reasoned thinking is needed; indeed, post-rational depth analysis is required.

What then to do?

While there are no easy solutions, I would take the anticipatory action approach and question reality at all levels: Question the litany, question the system, question the worldview and find ways to question the foundational myth that supports the entire system.

When forecasting the futures of risk, I would do my best to move beyond single point forecasts to scenarios, but then go much further, unpacking the levels underneath scenarios. That said, there are patterns to reality.

Macrohistory

One of the pillars of futures studies is macrohistory – the study of grand patterns of social change. Civilizations do have a linear trajectory – increased rights over the last 500 years or so, for example – but there are also cyclical dimensions. Driving a car is individually tailored; the opposite of course is the community, public transport. Perhaps we have erred on the side of the individual and earth’s limitations now call into question the realist Bush-Howard world we have created. There may be limits. Or there may be spiral solutions that bring out the best of each, perhaps creating boutique public transport wherein the public remains but is reinvented, where public transport is less drab, more tailored for communities. New technologies also may even dramatically further individualize the car, for example, by testing for alcohol, testosterone, the number of passengers (all risk criteria) and perhaps even genes. This further individualization may lead to safety for the public, turning cars off if risk factors are sensed.

In this sense, the grand question is: Do the new technologies promise a transformation of the world we have had for the last five hundred years? Can they transform the obvious risks industrializiation, materialism, the western way of life have generated? Or are the genetic, nano and other technologies mere continuations, now extending risk far beyond our capacity to imagine the futures being created, as with germ-line intervention and xeno-transplants.

Is then the solution the alternative softer Gaian society, organic, gender partnership, led by social movements, far more concerned with distribution than with growth, committed to community relationships and not necessarily to nation, but to planet. But we should not assume this Gaian future is risk free. As Michio Kaku argues, we need to move from Type 0 civilization (focused on using using non-renewable fossil fuels and nuclear energy) to a Type 1 civilization that uses the sun for energy, sending huge space ships to collect the vast resources of the sun, allowing us to modify the planet, weather, and begin to prepare our departure from this planet if need be (and eventually we will need somewhere else to live as our solar system will die one day). The soft Gaian future, focused on our inner lives and social justice is unlikely to have the capacity to save our species.

But the Bush-Howard model is clearly wrecking us and the Spaceship models poses more risks than we can imagine.

Perhaps it is time to imagine another vision of the future, moving toward but beyond the nation, or earth as spaceship or Gaia.

Shall we take the risk?

Table 1: Knowledge and Ignorance

CERTAINITY
KNOW DON’T KNOW

Type 1

 

What you know

 

  • Day to day given reality
  • Uncontested – Accepted
  • Forecasts – Data
 Type 4

 

What you don’t know

 

  • Knowledge outside one’s field, locale, area of expertise
  • Study – emerging issues analysis
  • Learning from others
  • Being conscious
Type 2

 

What you know you know

 

  • Reflection
  • Science especially testing of hypothesis
  • High degree of certainty – Information
 Type 5

 

What you don’t know you know

 

  • Unconscious Understanding
  • Super-consciousness
  • Intuitive Foresight
  • Wisdom
Type 3

 

What you know you don’t know

 

  • Scenarios are the most useful tool as they help contour uncertainty – frame areas of ignorance
  • Emerging issues analysis
  • Knowledge through questioning

 

 Type 6

 

What you don’t know you don’t know

 

  • Only way to approach this is by entering other ways of knowing, moving outside comfortable paradigms
  • Epistemic futures
  • The Problem of Consciousness – Enemy, Friend or Transcendence

UNCERTAINTY

References

[1] Bill McGuire, A Guide to the End of the World: Everything you never wanted to know. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.

[1] Sohail Inayatullah, Questioning the Future: Futures Studies, Action Learning and Organizational Transformation. Tamsui, Tamkang University Press, 2002.

[1] Paul Slovic and Elke Weber, “Perception of Risks Posed by extreme events.” Paper prepared for Conference, Risk Management Strategies in an Uncertain World. New York, April 12-13, 2002.)

[1] Michael Shapiro. , Reading the Postmodern Polity: Political Theory as Textual Practice. Oxford and Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1992.

[1] Sohail Inayatullah, Questioning the Future, 118. From, Richard Reeves, “Mission Impossible: Securing Tall Buildings Against Terrorists.” The International Herald Tribune. (October 20-21, 2001), 6.

[1] Ram Charan and Jerry Useem, “Why companies fail,” Fortune (May 27, 47-58)

[1] Ivana Milojevic. The futures of Education: Feminist and Post-western critiques of the Global Cyber hegemonic vision of education. Brisbane, the University of Queensland, 2002. Doctoral Dissertation.

[1] http://www.ermanz.govt.nz/Publications/pdfs/pe029801.pdf.

[1] Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah, eds. Macrohistory and Macrohistorians. Praeger, Westport, Ct., 1997.

[1] Sohail Inayatullah, Situating Sarkar: Tantra, Macrohistory and Alternative Futures. Maleny, Gurukul, 1999. Understanding Sarkar: The Indian Episteme, Macrohistory and Transformative Knowledge. Leidin, Brill, 2002.

[1] Michio Kaka, Visions. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998.