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Call for Papers: Plausibility in Futures Studies



Journal: Futures: The Journal of Policy, Planning and Futures
Studies

Open for submissions from March 1st 2018.
Closing date for new submissions: August 31st 2018


Guest editors:

Yashar Saghai, Johns Hopkins University and the
Millennium Project

Nele
Fischer, Freie Universitt Berlin

Sascha
Dannenberg, Freie Universitt
Berlin

Contact:
plausiblefutures2018@gmail.com





Covering methods and practices of futures studies, the journal Futures seeks
to examine possible and alternative futures of all human endeavours. As part
of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the journal, we call for a range of
papers that deal with one of the central theoretical and practical issues in
Futures Studies which is what we mean by plausible: What is a plausible
future?

The concept of plausibility has a long history in Futures Studies and
practice. Indeed, there is consensus around the view that the goal of Futures
Studies should not be to merely focus on probable futures and quantitatively
evaluate their consequences. If our goal is to open the mind to alternative
futures and foster creative thinking, we might want to consider a range of
possible futures whose likelihood cannot be determined.

But sufficiently complex problems with a long-term temporal scale generate
many possible futures. For pragmatic reasons, we cannot explore them all, and
need to narrow down our investigation to a subset of possible futures that
remain challenging and are relevant to the problem at hand. Yet these criteria
(challenge and relevance) on their own may still be insufficient to yield a
small number of significant alternative futures to explore. Several criteria
have been put forward, but perhaps none has been so ubiquitously appealed to
than plausibility. In Futures Studies, plausible and implausible futures are
routinely distinguished. However, both in theory and practice, the criteria
for characterizing those futures remain either vague, objectionable, or
implicit. In practice, the criteria used to assess plausibility of a future
often boil down to its degree of deviation from the most probable futures.
Plausibility, then, turns into a redundant concept and does not help to fill
the gap between the narrow space of probable futures and the broad space of
possible futures.

The goal of this issue of Futures is to make decisive progress in addressing
the problem of plausibility. Is this a notion that can be pinned down and be
made explicit thanks to concepts and tools borrowed from other disciplines? Or
does plausibility have to remain partly implicit and based on impossible to
fully articulate background knowledge and interests? Does it have to be
abandoned altogether and replaced by other notions that could fulfill the same
functions?

The contributions we expect for this issue of Futures should endeavor to
advance the debate over the theory and practical use of plausibility in
Futures Studies in novel ways and offer concrete pathways to make theoretical
progress or change in futures practice. This special issue builds on three
pillars: (1) Futures Studies practice; (2) Futures studies theory; (3)
relevant work on plausibility in other fields and social practices that could
help to rethink plausibility in Futures Studies. Thus, possible topics that we
encourage include, but are not limited to:





1. Plausibility in Futures Studies Practice

Papers could address the role of plausibility in different epistemic,
cultural, social, and political communities using Futures Studies. Is the
notion of a plausible future equally important within all of them? How is it
is construed, used, and challenged, for example, vis--vis surprising
developments? Is plausibility deployed differently in high stake contexts
where value pluralism about desirable futures prevails, such as societal
futures, technological futures, the futures of food, the futures of
governance? Do political or economic assumptions about the feasibility of some
visions of the future (ideals, utopias), or the lack of desirability of other
visions (dystopias, catastrophes) influence plausibility judgments? Does
plausibility contribute to consensus-building or are some familiar clichs
about emotionally resonating futures reinforced through participatory futures
processes? Are there cases where a Futures Study team deliberately selected
implausible futures they deemed worth exploring? What did they learn from such
experience and what were the outcomes of their study, how was their choice
perceived by their peers, study commissioners and users?





2. Plausibility in Futures Studies Theory, Methods, and Approaches



Papers could examine plausibility in Futures Studies with respect to a variety
of theories, methods, and approaches in Futures Studies, and build on general
theories, as well as more specific scholarship e.g., in the wake of Cynthia
Selins Plausibility Project 2009-2012. See
https://www.cynthiaselin.com/plausibility-project.html. For instance, how is
plausibility theorized in modelling (boundary conditions), in contrast to
scenario-building or visioning? Do some theorists provide tools for better
conceptions of plausibility or compellingly argue for its dismissal? Should
plausibility be understood as a descriptive notion or as a normative one? Is
plausibility an attribute of worlds, events, entities, or explanations? How do
various conceptions of plausible futures relate to tensions between realist
and constructivist ontologies in Futures Studies?




3. Transferring Notions of Plausibility from Other Fields


None of us wants to reinvent the wheel. Relevant fields that have worked out
the notion of plausibilityindependently of Futures Studies include history,
law, economics, STS, anthropology, sociology, narratology, linguistics,
cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, informal logic, urban planning,
architecture, and design. Could rival or complementary notions of plausibility
developed to answer other questions shed light on debates in Futures Studies?
For instance, could pluralistic theories of explanations in philosophy help us
to evaluate the plausibility of different explanations of how we could get
from here to a possible future? Does narratology offer us tools to rethink
plausibilitys aesthetic function in addition to its epistemic one? How could
ways of conceiving and reconstructing plausible pasts from dispersed traces
inform the construction of plausible futures?




Deadlines and submission instructions



It is advisable to discuss an abstract of the paper with the Guest Editors
before submitting the full paper to the journal

Contact the Guest Editors at
plausiblefutures2018@gmail.com



Papers may be submitted from March 1st 2018

Deadline for submissions of new papers is August 31st 2018

Expected date of online publication of papers is 3-4 weeks from final
acceptance

Each accepted paper will be published in print in the next available
volume after acceptance.

When all papers for the Special Issue are accepted, a virtual special
issue will be available online containing all the final papers.

Expected final date of Special Issue is February 2019.

Please read the guidance to authors before submitting:
https://www.elsevier.com/journals/futures/0016-3287/guide-for-authors



Submit papers online at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/futures/

Click on Submit Your Paper

Log into the Elsevier online submission system EVISE, registering if
you are not already registered.

On the page titled Enter Manuscript Information:

Select type of Issue: SI: Plausibility in Futures Studies

Article type: (normally full-length article)



About the Journal:

Futures is an international, refereed, multidisciplinary journal concerned
with medium and long-term futures of cultures and societies, science and
technology, economics and politics, environment and the planet, individuals
and humanity.

Covering methods and practices of futures studies, the journal publishes new
contributions to knowledge which examine possible and alternative futures of
all human endeavours, as well as humankind's multiple anticipatory
relationships with its futures. Futures seeks to promote divergent and
pluralistic visions and ideas about the future based on research and scholarly
reasoning.




Yashar Saghai, M.A., Ph.D.

Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Research Scholar and Associate
Faculty

The Millennium Project, Senior Scholar

ysaghai@jhu.edu



Websites:

yasharsaghai.com

Grappling with the Futures Symposium
(Harvard and BU, April 29-30, 2018)?


__
Yashar Saghai, M.A., Ph.D.
Research Scholar and Associate Faculty
Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
Deering Hall 201 | 1809 Ashland Ave | Baltimore MD 21205
410-614-0016 | ysaghai@jhu.edu
Website: yasharsaghai.com
__
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