CFP "Plausibility in Futures Studies" (Special Issue of "Futures")
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
__
EASST's Eurograd mailing list
Eurograd (at) lists.easst.net
Unsubscribe or edit subscription options: http://lists.easst.net/listinfo.cgi/eurograd-easst.net
Meet us via https://twitter.com/STSeasst
Report abuses of this list to Eurograd-owner@lists.easst.net
EASST-Eurograd
30 recent messages
- 24/04/2024 PhD Position at STS Vienna
- 24/04/2024 CfA: International Conference "Popular Health and Social Media" (University of Siegen, 12-13 September 2024)
- 24/04/2024 [CfP] Digital Transformations and Climate Change
- 24/04/2024 Hau of Finance Online Seminar Series - 'Crisis, Speculation and the Making of a Climate Haven" - Sarah Besky, Cornell University - Tuesday April 30 @15h CEST
- 24/04/2024 Funded PhD in AI and libraries, University College Dublin
- 20/04/2024 CFP: Workshop on Generative AI as a method in social sciences
- 20/04/2024 Webinar Reminder: Alternative Pathways for Patient Access to Advanced Therapies
- 20/04/2024 CfP: 6th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems (FMAS 2024)
- 20/04/2024 Participatory prototyping biomaterials: 2 year research position (post-doc level)
- 20/04/2024 Call for papers - Minerva Special Issue "Little Science, Big Science, Global Science: The Growth of Science and its Consequences"
- 20/04/2024 Call for Papers: TIME/LESS - Sensing, Planning, Designing in Complex Cities and Regions (AESOP TG Planning & Complexity)
- 20/04/2024 Call for Papers: TIME/LESS - Sensing, Planning, Designing in Complex Cities and Regions (AESOP TG Planning & Complexity)
- 17/04/2024 2nd CFP: 4th Workshop on Agents and Robots for reliable Engineered Autonomy (AREA 2024)
- 17/04/2024 April 26 - Seminar session with Niels Ten Oever - Sanctions, Standards, and Sovereignty
- 15/04/2024 PhD Studentship: Forming Futures
- 15/04/2024 PhD Studentship: Forming Futures
- 15/04/2024 Reminder: TATuP: CfA 34/1 (2025): "Practices and concepts of 'care' in sustainability transformations"
- 15/04/2024 Two PhD vacancies in Social Studies of Scholarly Communication and Peer Review
- 15/04/2024 3-year fully funded PhD position on digital infrastructure breakdown
- 15/04/2024 [Deadline: 23 Apr] International Summer Digital Workshop: Gender and Innovation in Post-Pandemic Ableism: Social, Environmental, and Digital Justice
- 13/04/2024 April 18, 13:15 - Webinar Anna Nikolaeva, "Politics of non-knowing"
- 13/04/2024 CfA: SI environ|mental urbanities
- 13/04/2024 Vernon Press - "Science, Technology and Society for a Post-Truth Age: Comparative Dialogues on Reflexivity"
- 13/04/2024 Conference "Imaginations of Autonomy" Registration Reminder
- 13/04/2024 Athena VU Amsterdam is hiring: Three career track (to tenured) assistant professorships | Transformative Learning | Management of Innovations | System transformation in health and well-being (last one in Dutch)
- 06/04/2024 AUP Liveable Futures Series: call for proposals
- 06/04/2024 Scientific Officer for Sustainable Food Systems and Risk Communication
- 06/04/2024 Bonn History and Philosophy of Physics research seminar in the summer term of 2024
- 06/04/2024 PhD Position - University of Amsterdam on "Contested Epistemologies of Sustainability"
- 06/04/2024 7th STS Italia Summer School | ArTS in Society - Application deadline April 28, 2024