Environmental Futures – Advancing Mutual Human-Nature Relationship — World Futures Review Special Issue

deadline for submissions: 
April 15, 2024
full name / name of organization: 
Dr. Manjana Milkoreit, University of Oslo; Prof. Bethany Wiggin, University of Pennsylvania Allie E.S. Wist, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Ludwig Weh, Fraunhofer IMW; Dr. Kasper Kok, Wageningen University

World Futures Review – Special Issue

Title: Environmental Futures – Advancing Images of Mutual Human-Nature Relationships

 

Guest Editors:

Ludwig Weh

Fraunhofer IMW Center for International Management and Knowledge Economics

ludwig.weh@imw.fraunhofer.de

 

Allie E.S. Wist

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute & New York University

wista@rpi.edu

 

Dr. Kasper Kok

Wageningen University

 

Dr. Manjana Milkoreit

University of Oslo

 

Prof. Bethany Wiggin

University of Pennsylvania

 

 

Dates:

April 15, 2024: Abstract submission (300-500 words)

April 30, 2024: Notification of acceptance

June 30, 2024: Full paper submission (First Draft)

October, 2024: Virtual writers’ workshop (hosted by co-editors, partly asynchronous)

November 30, 2024: Final paper submission

 

Call for papers:

Environmental futures describe how we envision the state of so-called nature and our human relationship with it in the future, including how “nature” or “natural” might be produced differently, and via what imaginaries. Their forms of expression may encompass, but not be limited to: data and GIS-based modelling (climate forecasts, ecosystem scenarios: see Alcamo, 2008); design-based futures (speculative design, design fiction); narrative/story-based approaches (climate fiction, solar punk); art-based approaches (speculative artifacts, soundscapes and sonic experimentation, performative futures); mixed-method, mixed-media approaches (games and world-building, sensory and immersive approaches). Prominent project examples enclose the IPCC Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, the IPBES Nature Futures Framework, SUPERFLUX, Burton Nitta, The Institute for Postnatural Studies, or the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes initiative.

 

The futures studies and foresight community has acknowledged environmental changes as major drivers of future-related events and developments in the Anthropocene (Slaughter, 2020). Consequently, environmental futures have been introduced to futures studies literature by conceptual papers (Kuosa, 2011; Granjou et al., 2017), theoretical reflections (Weh et al., 2023) and specific case studies (Berg et al., 2016). In recent years, futures studies methodology has been combined with environmental and socioecological research as well as art-as-research methodologies and speculative design to reach beyond the limitations of traditional Western approaches to assessing ecological change (which have the potential to reproduce the colonial, hegemonic, and capitalist worldviews which have exacerbated ecological demise in the first place).

 

While current epistemological traditions prioritize forms of Western academic knowledge production, ecological relationships and shifting environmental realities are inviting novel, alternative forms of inquiry e.g. in the fields of art and design. Creative methodologies for critical speculative work have earned tenacity in recent years for their attendance to alternative forms of knowledge-production—crucial for imagining just and alternative more-than-human worlds. These include non-Western and decolonial approaches, methodologies prioritizing sensory and embodied knowledge, and aesthetic or narrative forms. In light of the urgency and profundity of challenges presented by the Anthropocene, environmental futures are increasingly explored through research-creation, design research and science-art approaches (Bentz et al., 2022; Rogers, 2016; Springgay & Truman, 2018).

 

With signs of these communities converging (Cork et al., 2023; Moore & Milkoreit, 2020; Wyborn et al., 2020), this special issue explores further alignment, intersections and potential collaboration spaces between futures studies, artistic research, and environmental, climate and sustainability research. Contributions may reflect about novel ways of imagining, creating and communicating images of environmental futures. Beyond established practices, resulting project interventions may include non-Western ways of knowing as in Indigenous research, non-human, more-than-human or multi-species futures.

 

Aims of this special issue:

- promote and establish environmental futures further as a subfield of futures studies with strong multi-stakeholder and transdisciplinary applicability.

- further connect the futures field with environmental research, sustainability sciences, Posthumanist and postnatural studies, multispecies ecologies, STS, ecosocial design, art-as-research, and other related fields and disciplines.

- showcase the scope and diversity of environmental futures approaches in ways of knowing (epistemologies), methodical approaches (methodologies), procedural knowledge (frameworks, good practices / established research processes, alternative approaches) and results (ontologies).

- link these approaches to established knowledge bases and methods in futures studies and invite their revision, expansion and advancement.

- discuss futures studies as platform to link natural and social scientific assessment with arts- and design-based/speculative creation and experiential enactment of environmental futures.

- reflect on good practices, successful project implementations and case studies, decolonial and queer frameworks, grassroots / experimental approaches.

- weigh open, explorative approaches against normative, value-based and action-oriented approaches: under which circumstances should researchers take a critical position / active political stance when creating environmental futures?

- highlight aspects of relationality, reciprocity, responsibility and care in practicing environmental futures, e.g. in participatory or transformative research settings.

 

Accepted formats:

To account for the wide spectrum of disciplinary and methodical approaches to environmental futures, this special issue invites a variety of written formats with sufficient argumentative quality and scientific substantiation within their disciplinary contexts and respective forms, including but not limited to:

- reviews

- concept papers

- essays/opinionates and position papers

- frameworks and conceptual study designs

- study reports of ongoing research projects

- science-art, design-based and other mixed-method or multimedia project texts

- exhibit/performance catalogs and documentations

- descriptions of co-creative/participatory/transformative interventions

- perspectives and reflection papers

 

We welcome diverse, innovative, thought-provoking contributions to further establish, discuss and advance the environmental futures approach as nexus between the futures/foresight and related research and practice communities.

  

Accepted submissions will be double-blind peer-reviewed.

 

All submissions must be submitted via Manuscript Central at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/wfr

World Futures Review uses the Chicago Manual of Style (Author-Date Style)* regarding orthography and word usage. Complete details on formatting are available here: Submission Guidelines and Author Instructions

 

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Alcamo, J. (Ed.). (2008). Environmental futures: the practice of environmental scenario analysis. Elsevier.

 

Bentz, J., do Carmo, L., Schafenacker, N., Schirok, J., & Corso, S. D. (2021). Creative, embodied practices, and the potentialities for sustainability transformations. Sustainability Science, 1-13.

 

Berg, C., Rogers, S., & Mineau, M. (2016). Building scenarios for ecosystem services tools: Developing a methodology for efficient engagement with expert stakeholders. Futures, 81, 68-80.

 

Cork, S., Alexandra, C., Alvarez-Romero, J. G., Bennett, E. M., Berbés-Blázquez, M., Bohensky, E., ... & Wyborn, C. (2023). Exploring Alternative Futures in the Anthropocene. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 48.

 

Granjou, C., Walker, J., & Salazar, J. F. (2017). The politics of anticipation: On knowing and governing environmental futures. Futures, 92, 5-11.

 

Kuosa, T. (2011). Evolution of futures studies. Futures, 43(3), 327-336.

 

Moore, M. L., & Milkoreit, M. (2020). Imagination and transformations to sustainable and just futures. Elem Sci Anth8(1), 081.

 

Rogers, H. S. (2019). STS by Material Means. Dialogues Between Artistic Research and Science and Technology Studies, 76-87.

 

Slaughter, R. A. (2020). Farewell alternative futures? Futures, 121, 102496.

 

Springgay, S., & Truman, S. E. (2018). On the need for methods beyond proceduralism: Speculative middles, (in) tensions, and response-ability in research. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3), 203-214.

 

Weh, L., Weil, C., de Haan, G., & Leinfelder, R. (2023). Ecosystem Scenarios as Environmental Futures-Implications for Participatory Framework Designs Integrating Social Capital Formation and Natural Capital Preservation. Journal of Futures Studies, 28(2).

 

Wyborn, C., Davila, F., Pereira, L., Lim, M., Alvarez, I., Henderson, G., ... & Woods, E. (2020). Imagining transformative biodiversity futures. Nature Sustainability, 3(9), 670-672.