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In 2016 I decided to contribute a book chapter on a futures studies perspective on participatory action research, in an ambitious project led by Lonnie Rowell, Catherine D. Bruce, Joseph M. Shosh, and Margaret M. Riel. It was quite a journey. I want to specifically thank them and those futurists that helped me by responding to some survey questions: Luke van der Laan, Ruben Nelson, Anita Kelliher, Tanja Hichert, Robert Burke, Mike McCallum, Aaron Rosa, and Steven Gould. Of course thanks to many many other people who are part of this general movement – people I’ve worked with and learned from who are woven through this text. This is a pre-print draft, and citation of final publication is as follows:

Ramos, J. (2017). Linking Foresight and Action: Toward a Futures Action Research. In The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research (pp. 823-842). Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-40523-4_48

 

Introduction

For over a decade I have been involved in a unique enterprise, to explore, document and integrate Action Research approaches with Futures Studies. This rather obscure endeavor, which from the outside may seem arcane, for me is core to addressing the great social and ecological challenges we face today. Because of this inner direction, I continue to develop this confluence into hybrid approaches to human and social development.

After a degree in comparative literature and on the back of the experience of globalization living in Japan, Taiwan and Spain, I entered a Masters degree in ‘Strategic Foresight.’ What excited me was the emphasis on systems analysis, visioning, and social change. I was attracted to the idea that a group of people could envision a future they desired and then potentially create it. I entered the Futures Studies field with a desire for transformational change.

Futures studies gave me critical thinking and tools and frameworks for exploring the long term, however a ‘discrepancy’ emerged. Futures Studies clarified the sharp challenges faced by our planetary civilization over the long term. The challenges we addressed were large scale and historical in dimensions, what Slaughter (2002) referred to as a ‘civilizational crisis’: long term climate change, casino capitalism and rising inequality, profound shifts in technology, and other issues. The gap for me related to a question of empowerment. Where and how do we discover agency in creating the world we want? Futures Studies gave me knowledge for forecasting, deconstructing, analyzing and envisioning our futures. But I needed to know how to create change.

Intuitively, I began looking for approaches that would address this gap. When I found action research, I was immediately inspired by the diversity of thinking, approaches and case studies and began playing with the potential overlaps and fusion between the two areas (Ramos, 2002). I also interned with Dr. Yoland Wadsworth, involved myself in the AR community in Melbourne and began to find synergies and opportunities to express the logic of foresight coupled with action through a variety of projects. This work has continued to guide a wide variety of current projects. This chapter details this journey.

The Future as a Principle of Present Action

Slaughter (1995) put forward the idea of ‘foresight’ as a human capacity and quality, in contradistinction to the widespread notion that the ‘future’ is somehow outside us. In sharp contrast to a future state independent of human consciousness, Slaughter located the future in human consciousness, in our human capacity to cognize consequence, change, difference, temporality. The future, he argued, is therefore a principle of present action (Slaughter, 2004). The images we hold of our futures can and should inform wise action in the present.

This simple idea represents a radical departure from previous epistemologies of time, from a fixed and unitary notion of the future to one where ‘the future’ is a projection of consciousness and culture. This embodied and constructivist concept of the future points toward the need to build ethnographic and sociological understandings for how various communities cognize time differently, and how human consciousness and culture mediate decisions and action.

In a number of professional settings, foresight informs action in a variety of ways.

• In the area of policy, governments at various scales are engaged in a variety of decisions, many which will have enduring effects over decades and may be difficult to undo. Policy foresight helps regions to understand long-term social and ecological changes and challenges, to develop adequate responses.
• In the area of strategy, businesses require an understanding of how market, technology and policy shifts may create changes in their operating and transactional environments. Strategy foresight helps businesses discover opportunities, address the challenges of fast changing markets, and develop a social and ethical context for business decisions.
• In the area of innovation and design, foresight can inspire design concepts, social and technical innovations that have a future-fit, rather than only a present-fit. Design and innovation provide the ‘seeds of change’ interventions that can, over many years, grow to become significant change factors, leverage for desirable long-term social change.

The broader and arguably highest role for foresight is to inform and inspire social transformation toward ethical goals (for example ecological stewardship and social justice). In this regard social foresight can play a major role in informing and inspiring social movements and community based social action. Citizens and people from many walks of life have the power to plant the seeds of change, create social innovations, alternatives and experiments that provide new pathways and strategies that can lead to alternative and desirable futures. Foresight can inspire a sense of social responsibility and impetus for social action, at both political and personal levels. In my own life, I have found that as I have cognized various social and ecological challenges, I am compelled to act differently in the present. This has been as simple as using a heater less, changing to low energy light bulbs and installing solar panels, to more entailed commitments like attending climate change and anti-war marches, organizing social alternative events, and even co-founding businesses. The link between foresight and action is at once social, political, organizational and personal, and uniquely different for each person.

Futures Studies’ Road to a Participatory-Action

Like any field, Futures Studies has undergone major shifts over its 50-year history. From my perspective as an action researcher, and building on the work of Inayatullah (1990) and social development perspectives (Ramos, 2004a), I argue that the field has gone through five major stages: Predictive, Systemic, Critical, Participatory and Action-oriented. From the 1950s to the 1960s, the field was concerned with prediction, in particular macro-economic forecasting, where change was envisaged as linear (Bell, 1997). From the 1970s to the 1980s, the field used various systems perspectives that incorporated more complexity and indeterminacy into its inquiry and scenarios and alternative futures emerged (Moll, 2005). From the 1980s and 1990s, interpretive and critical perspectives emerged that incorporated post-modern, post-structural and critical theory influences, where change was seen related to discursive power (Slaughter, 1999). From the 1990s to the present, participatory approaches have flourished. The most recent shift puts an emphasis on action-oriented inquiry, associated with design, enterprise creation, innovation and embodied and experiential processes (Ramos 2006).

Figure 1: evolution of futures studies from an AR perspective

To understand these shifts it is important to understand the epistemological assumptions that underpin these modalities. In the linear modality, forecasters believed that the future could actually be predicted. Without a relationship to subjectivity or inter-subjectivity, the future was ‘out-there’ and could be known like a ‘substance’ or thing. There were problems with prediction, however, as many were wrong (Schnaars, 1989), and this perspective could not account for human agency or the ‘paradox of prediction’ – once having made a prediction, other people may decide to work toward an alternative future. It could also not account for complexity, that is, that a variety of variables, factors, and forces interact in complex and difficult to understand ways. Hence the systemic modality was born.

In the systemic modality, instead of attempting to predict a single future, systems analysts created complex models that examined the interactions between a number of variables. Trends and forecasts were still used, but instead of assuming a single future, the ideas and practices for creating scenarios emerged. A number of World Models, including Limits to Growth (Meadows, 1972), took this perspective, providing a number of scenarios relying on the prominence of particular variables, and their interactions. A challenge to this arose when World Models and other systemically informed studies emerged that were inconsistent or which contradicted each other (e.g. Hughes, 1985). Research institutes from different parts of the world produced radically different perspectives on the future. This is where the critical modality brings such contradictions into perspective.

In the critical mode, models or systems for future change have their basis in different cultures, perspectives, discourses and interests, as well depending on whether they were from a ‘developing’ or ‘developed’ world perspective. Variables seen as essential aspects of a system, from a critical view, were an expression of discourse and culture, rather than universal ‘truths’ (Inayatullah, 1998; Slaughter, 1999). This is seen in how gendered power dynamics are expressed in images of the future (Milojevic 1999), or when people are caught in someone else’s discourse on the future, and are in-effect holding a ‘used future’ (Inayatullah, 2008). The critical mode questions default futures and develops alternative and authentic futures. The critical mode affirms the importance of questioning the role of perspective, deepened through engagement in participatory approaches.

Whereas critical futures posits that the future is different based on discourse, culture, and disposition, in the participatory mode or process, contrasting perspectives on the future will be present in the same room or group process. The exercise becomes much less abstract and far more dialogical. The challenge shifts to how people can have useful, enriching and intelligent conversations about the future, while still honoring (indeed leveraging) differing perspectives. The participatory mode uses workshop tools and methods that include previous approaches: identification of trends and emerging issues (predictive), scenario development (systems) and de-constructive approaches (critical). Participation forms the basis for generative conversations about our futures, and is a pathway toward transformative action.

An action modality is what emerges from embodied participation. When people come from systemically different backgrounds, the potential for conflict and miscommunication exists, but likewise a group based inter-systemic understanding can emerge, and this embodied and emergent ‘alliance’ is critical in developing the potential to create change. When participants can co-develop new narratives, authentic vision and intelligent strategies, people can feel a sense of natural ownership and commitment. Group based inquiry that leads to collective foresight with an understating of shared challenges and a common ground vision for change, can call forth commitment and action.

Each stage in the process relies on previous stages. The systems modality relies on statistically rigorous trends and data to construct scenarios. The critical modality relies on scenarios as objects of deconstruction. The participatory modality relies on all previous modes to be enacted in workshop environments. The action mode relies on participants to come together to create shared meaning and commitment.

Situating Foresight Work In The Action Research Tradition

The distinction between First, Second and Third person action research, originally developed by Reason and Bradbury (2001a) and Torbert (2001), and now widely adopted in the action research field, is used here to explain the nature of the synthesis of action research and futures studies and helps provide outlines for a proposed Futures Action Research (FAR).[1]

According to Reason (Reason, 2001b), First Person AR concerns a person’s self-inquiry, self-understanding and self-awareness in a research process “to foster an inquiring approach to his or her own life (p. 4)” … and by extension, practice. Second Person AR involves inter-personal inquiry, where people create learning with each other, and is “concerned with how to create communities of inquiry” (p.4). Third Person AR engages in processes for developing co-inquiry at a-proximate scales which may be “geographically dispersed” (p.5) and impersonal.

First Person Futures Action Research

A first person action research approach to futures research entails questioning and transforming one’s own assumptions about the future, as well as one’s practice. As researchers we hold assumptions about the future that, when we engage in fieldwork with others, are likely to change. ‘Data’ here entails documenting and explicating one’s assumptions, intentions and experiences. This can be done for oneself to facilitate self-learning, but also for a project reference group as an aspect of double and triple loop learning (Torbert, 2004). Documenting the revolutions in our own thinking about the future is a critical aspect of any futures research. And, as practitioners engaging in social change experiments with others, we can learn what worked well, not so well, and how we might improve our own practices.  

Developmental psychology is employed by Slaughter (2008) and by Hayward (2003) as a way of shedding light on practitioner disposition, and to help practitioners to engage more effectively with the breadth of developmental orientations. Inayatullah (2008) uses the Jungian inspired work of Hal and Sidra Stone (1989) to shed light on the critical factors driving the behavior and psychology of practitioners. Kelly (2005) developed one-on-one reflective processes using student journaling with first year engineering students to facilitate sustainability consciousness and global citizenship (Kelly, 2006). Inayatullah (2006) has been exemplary in generating self-understanding within futures studies.

Second Person Futures Action Research

The second person dimension is the inter-personal experience of a group of people inquiring into and questioning the future together, in a process that leads to actions / experiments that drive further learning and knowledge. Groups will inquire into the nature of the social changes (trends and emerging issues) that may impact them, create shared visions for change, and develop strategies and plans to enact this. When visions, plans and strategies are enacted, effects can be observed and documented (what happened, whether they worked or didn’t, etc.), the experience of which is leveraged to generate new understandings and new actions. ‘Data’ here includes what people express together (e.g. workshop notes) when questioning the future, as well as the documentation of plans, actions and effects that arise from such inquiry.

There are a number of foresight practitioners who have worked with organizations engaging in ‘full cycle’ processes of research.[2] Some of the best examples include the work of Inayatullah (2008), List (2006 ), Stevenson (2006), Kelleher (2005), and Daffara and Gould (2007).

Third Person Futures Action Research

The third person dimension reflects the dynamics of a larger community of co-inquiry. Large-scale processes are used to facilitate and capacitate co-inquiry and action for communities or networks that can involve hundreds or even thousands in inquiry into the future that leads to various types of actions ( e.g. innovation, policy making, art, design and media).

The Anticipatory Democracy projects in the 1970s, which engaged citizens in large scale futures exploration and political / policy change processes across a number of US states (Bezold, 1978) provided early examples of the third person dimension. More recently, select governments have invested heavily in inter-departmental foresight systems that link hundreds of people in foresight informed policy development (Habegger, 2010). Transition Management is exemplary in bringing together long-term sustainability thinking with innovation oriented alliance building across government, business and community. The iteration cycles described in transition management are similar to cycles of action research.

Figure 2: Transition Management Cycle based on Loorbach & Rotmans (2010)

Most recent are web-based / network form approaches to facilitating large scale participatory futures inquiry (Ramos, 2012). These are newer and hold promise in their ability to create large-scale social conversations and interactions concerning our shared futures and challenges. The vision for a ‘Global Foresight Commons’ is another example, where a planet wide conversation about our shared challenges and issues is created that fosters globally networked collaborative projects for change (Ramos, 2014).

Integrating First, Second and Third person modes

According to Reason, these distinctions should not be seen simply as ways to categorize action research practices, but rather as interacting dimensions of these practices that, when used together, make it holistic (Reason, 2004). There are two main avenues for integration. First, we can use the distinctions when making sense of research data, as a method of triangulation. Secondly, the three categories provide a generative dynamic for action research projects to evolve and develop (Reason, 2001b).

Figure 3: ‘Triangulating’ futures action research

Triangulating futures research across these three domains of experience entails observing and noting patterns, connections, synergies and contradictions in the ‘data’ between the distinctions. As action researchers, we should not just be looking for second and third person support for ideas and assumptions by ignoring contradictory empirical or testimonial evidence. This requires critical subjectivity and self-questioning, looking for how second and third Person dimensions may contradict our first person assumptions, imaginings and intuitions about the future, not just support them. This type of research then allows each of the three dimensions to transform the other. Second and third person modes can challenge the inner narrative / assumptions / image of the future of the researcher. First and third person modes can challenge our engagements with others, what questions we ask, what processes we run, and how we interpret what others are saying about the future. First and second person modes can challenge our engagement with the literature on the future, and help guide us in new directions, or to address gaps in the literature.

Synthesis of Action Learning and Futures Studies

Burke, Stevenson, Macken, Wildman, and Inayatullah (with numerous other collaborators) initially pioneered Anticipatory Action Learning (AAL) (Ramos, 2002) . They were steeped in participatory development traditions, as well as humanistic and neo-humanistic Futures Studies. Their vision for this fusion was to bridge a transformational space of inquiry, the long term and planetary future, with the everyday and embodied world of relating and acting. Arguably, their agenda was to engineer a new modality for local and planetary transformation, opening the structural (long term and global) to the question and indeed praxis of participatory action and agency.

Figure 4: Positioning AAL in knowledge traditions (Inayatullah 2006)

Inayatullah (2006) AAL is described as originating from three influences:

• Development oriented participatory action research
• The work of Reg Revans (2011)
• Futures Studies

Inayatullah modified Reg Revans’ formula of learning from ‘programmed knowledge + questioning’ to a future-oriented ‘programmed knowledge + questioning the future’.

Questioning the future entails unpacking and deconstructing the default future, or what has been described in this chapter as a ‘used future,’ our unquestioned image or assumption of the future, whether for our world, organization or ourselves. Challenging this default future, we are then able to imagine and articulate alternative and desired futures. Questioning the future entails a variety of categories – possible, probable and preferred futures – and lays the foundations for discovering collective agency, the future people choose to create. Agency also means that expert knowledge and categories for the future are not automatically privileged; participants can draw from experts, but equally use their indigenous / endogenous epistemologies / ways of knowing as pathways toward creating authentic futures (Inayatullah, 2006, p.658).

AAL represents an evolving and mature theory and practice, with a growing body of practitioners. One of the most important expressions of AAL has been through the development of the ‘Six Pillars’ methodology, a structured yet participatory format for exploring the future. Its strength lies in its simplicity. It features easy to use tools that the non-initiated can easily grasp, and follows a logical sequence that moves participants through various stages: “mapping, anticipation, timing, deepening, creating alternatives and transforming” (Inayatullah, 2008, p. 7). Participants can decide to re-order the tools, even modify them. However, they provide a basic scaffold for what is otherwise a complex and challenging undertaking. Making the exploration of change both enjoyable and empowering should be seen as a significant achievement. Six Pillars can be seen as a ‘practitioner action research’ project where Inayatullah and colleagues experimented and developed approaches over several decades with thousands of people, looking for and discovering what works with groups (Ramos, 2003).

Anticipatory Action Learning’s Disruptive Role

One of the key features of anticipatory action learning is the importance of post-structural and critical theory in the practice of ‘questioning the future.’ One of the central principles is that ‘the future’ is often the site of a hegemonic discourse, that is, ‘the future’ may be an instrument or artifact of power. Thus one of the critical questions asked in conversations is ‘Who is privileged and who is marginalized in a discourse on the future,’ or ‘who wins and who loses in that future’ (Inayatullah, 1998). This follows an argument made by Sardar (1999) that the future has already been colonized, by which he meant that most people’s image of the future has already been set and shaped by powerful interests. These ‘used futures’ maintain their power by virtue of never being questioned. Discovering agency therefore begins with a de-colonization process, where the constructs of the future people unconsciously hold can be questioned and people can generate new, more relevant, intelligent and more authentic visions that empower and inspire. Good futures studies therefore follow what Singer (1993) described as philosophy’s central role: challenging the critical assumptions of the age.

Contemporary Issues in the Confluence of Action Research and Future Studies

In writing this chapter I have consulted with some of the practitioners and networks in the field combing action research and future studies.[3] The following is not a comprehensive list, however, here are some of the critical issues emerging among those at the crossroad of these approaches.

Foresight Tribes

As described in this chapter, the shift from the future as ‘out there’ (the positivist / post-positivist notion of temporality) to the future as ‘in here’ (a constructivist idea of foresight) is a foundational shift in epistemological orientation. Participatory workshops and engagements which begin with questioning the ‘used future’ and exploring peoples not-so-conscious assumptions embark us on a new path of exploring and understanding the embodied and associational dimensions of how we collectively hold visions of change. In my research I have identified distinct ‘foresight tribes.’ Foresight tribes are features of a network society dynamic, where ideas and images of the future are held trans-geographically and a-synchronously (Castells, 1997; Ronfeldt, 1996). Contemporary popular visions are associated with globally distributed communities, where language emerges into patterns for cognizing change. Foresight tribes are both embodied and virtual communities that produce and reproduce particular outlooks, language and images of the futures. Some, like ‘re-localists’ approach the future through the lens of peak oil, an unsustainable global financial system and the looming threat of environmental collapse. They argue we need to begin to build resilience into our locales, relocalize economic processes, governance and culture. Other tribes like ‘transhumanists’ believe we are on the cusp of transforming the very definition of humanity, as artificial intelligence, biotechnological enhancements, and cybernetic augmentation become prevalent. Through my research I have studied and documented over a dozen ‘tribes,’ and have come to appreciate how what is conventionally understood as ‘the future,’ is rather an image of the future held by a community and an expression of associational embodiment and cultural dynamics (Ramos, 2010).

Figure 5: Social change and cognition analysis framework

Actor Network Theory (Latour, 2005), which has strong resonance with Action Research, has been an important methodology I’ve used in decoding discourse within tribes. Discourses can hold notions of temporality, both of the past (how we got here) and future (where we are going). A discourse also holds key notions of structure (what is real and enduring) and agency (who / what has the power to create change). Underpinning both is an epistemological dimension, who and what is legitimate in respect to knowledge of social change. These different discourses give rise to distinct notions of strategic action. Thus, theories and discourses for change do not necessarily explain reality; they explain what ideas are held by people that guide their notions of correct action – why they act in particular ways. As Van der Laan (Personal Communication, October 2014) remarked ironically, “Action is based on deep assumptions which create systems of the future” – rather than explaining the future, these discourses generate modes of strategic action that help to shape the future.

Narrative Foresight

People’s experience of reality is mediated through myth, metaphor, story and narrative (Inayatullah, 2004; Lakoff, 1980; Thompson, 1974). In this regard, supporting change requires helping organizations and communities to generate new narratives. For Inayatullah it is an essential step, where participants use ‘causal layered analysis’ to deconstruct existing (static) narratives and develop new (empowering) narratives for themselves. Some are using the new field of ‘trans-media storytelling’ to engage participants in co-creating narratives within a developed story space for many types of contemporary media (von Stackelberg, 2014). Other practitioners have been inspired by the archetypal work of Joseph Campbell in developing participatory foresight processes and workshops (Schultz, 2012). Another emerging practice in the field is called ‘experiential foresight’ and ‘design futures,’ where practitioners provide living and embodied narrative contexts, complete with stage craft, actors and scripts, that participants inhabit for a period of time and which provoke them into questioning the future(s) (Candy, 2010; Dator, 2013). Milojevic (2014) combines narrative therapy and foresight approaches.

Drama and Gaming

Drama is one of the oldest forms of story telling and narrative, with myriad traditions across many civilizations and cultures. In the action research tradition, Moreno’s foundational work developing psychodrama, and Agusto Boal’s (1998) development of socio-drama have inspired many around the world. Following suit, in futures studies new approaches have emerged which draw participants into dramaturgical situations and games. Head (2011) developed an approach called ‘Forward Theatre’, a method for exploring alternative futures through drama, to encourage debate and dialog on hypothetical possibilities embodied through well-crafted narratives and performances. For education purposes in the context of foresight and leadership, Voros and Hayward (Hayward, 2006) developed the ‘Sarkar Game.’ Based on a critique of the Indian varna (caste) system, participants embody one of four roles: Worker, Warrior, Intellectual, and Merchant, interacting using the macro social cycle framework developed by P.R. Sarkar. Inayatullah uses the game in workshops to deepen participants understanding of social dynamics, and the potentially progressive and regressive aspects of each archetype. The Sarkar game is “intended to embody the concepts being discussed…to move participants to other ways of knowing so that they may… gain a deeper and more personal understanding and appreciation of alternatives futures” (Inayatullah, 2013, p.1).

Experiential foresight in the ‘design futures’ tradition also combines drama and gaming in innovative ways. Interrogating the power dynamics inherent in communications technologies, in 2012, Ph.D. students and faculty of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (HRCFS) (Dator, Sweeney, Yee, & Rosa, 2013) employed a live gaming platform involving over 40 participants from around the world, interacting in a geo-spatial game-world twining virtual and physical interactions:

At the heart of the game’s content were four alternative futures … using the Mānoa School scenario modeling method. Utilizing four ‘generic’ futures from which to construct scenarios that ‘have equal probabilities of happening, and thus all need to be considered in equal measure and sincerity,’ the content for Gaming Futures evolved into a creative exercise in how to apply gaming dynamics … which required building complex, yet accessible, scenarios within a plastic gaming platform” (Dator et al, 2013, p121).

Gaming futures was preceded by work in experiential foresight, within which participants can inhabit and interact within artistically rich yet sociologically plausible alternative futures (Candy, 2010). The scenario sets are created to be subtle, subversive and fundamentally disruptive of participant assumptions, and they act as provocations for further questioning and action. Rosa has developed ‘Geo-spatially Contextualized Futures Research,’ dramaturgical games which twine ubiquitous / ambient computing / augmented reality with physical interaction. He sees Alternative Futures as a collaborative resource:

The PAR [participatory action research] framework lends credence to the idea that participants are co-researchers, actively engaged in the adaptation of the research itself. As our foundational medium of futures research is the alternative scenario (experiential, interactive, immersive), we must design systems that can be changed, taught, and augmented (Rosa personal communication, October 2014).

Dialogue of Selves

Narrative, drama and role-playing, arguably, engage ancient aspects of the human psyche. We respond to particular roles played unwittingly by those around us and by those actors with greater skill. Two approaches with Jungian origins have strong and useful connections with archetypal notions of temporal consciousness. The first is the work of Hal and Sidra Stone, who have developed a psychological system called ‘voice dialogue.’ The central proposition in their work is that the psyche expresses a multi-vocality of being. Different ‘selves’ have different roles and functions, and depending on the context, some are dominant and some are disowned. Their work is employed by practitioners in visioning processes to deepen and provide more holistic approaches (Stone, 1989). Inayatullah (2008) finds that some groups, when conducting visioning processes, disown key elements, making visions less robust and tenable. For example, a group may envision a strategically robust but pragmatic future, but disown what authentically inspires people – that the vision makes rational sense but will not motivate. Alternatively a vision may be deeply inspiring, but if it disowns the planning, control and financial dimensions of a community or organization, it may be un-operable. The goal then is to create visions that integrate multiple selves: the planner, the artist, the servant, the dreamer, the manager… toward the development of holistic visions that are operable – that is, fulfill needs at multiple levels. In this line of thinking the facilitator invariably invokes or provokes what they disown, ‘the Other,’ and it is the challenge of the facilitator to embrace the Otherness of the moment, as an invitation to learn and develop more fully (Inayatullah, 2006).

Anticipatory Design and Co-creation

In my work I have been guided by a passion and vision to link strategic foresight and action research. In the past, this was conceptualized through the idea of ‘anticipatory innovation,’ and use of existing action research approaches (Ramos 2002, 2004b, 2004c). Later, activism and ethnographic foresight became important manifestations to critically question and revision discourse and strategy (Ramos, 2010). Most recently, the link between design thinking and foresight has become prominent.

A new generation of design thinking is emerging, trans-disciplinary, engaging across art, science and technology, commons-oriented and deeply collaborative and participatory. Service design thinking has become an important approach in the interface between creative industries, enterprise creation and social innovation. Service design both incorporates the use of foresight as leverage in conceptualizing services and innovations in the context of social change, and incorporates a participatory and (design) ethnography orientation so that design is tightly coupled with the needs of end users (Stickdorn, 2012).

The Futures Action Model

I created the Futures Action Model (FAM) over a ten-year period (2003-2013). It was a product of my passion to link present-day action with foresight, and of the many conversations, collaborations and opportunities I’ve had with colleagues and clients / students (Ramos, 2013).

FAM was created as a scaffold to facilitate social innovation and enterprise creation in the context of our awareness of social change and alternative futures. It emerged from the realization that problem solving was not linear, and that a non-linear but logical approach that coupled action and foresight was needed. I wanted to clarify the link between foresight and action, but more importantly facilitate an approach by which people could do both simultaneously, and where one activity complemented the other. I also wanted to de-mystify the process of foresight informed innovation and make it easier to generate breakthrough ideas.

FAM is a nested system that posits four interrelated aspects in the foresight-action nexus.

Figure 6: Basic Futures Action Model (FAM)

The largest (sociological) context is called ‘emerging futures.’ This is the space of social change (emerging issues, trends, scenarios), and from a progressive / activist perspective, the challenges we face.

Within this, the next layer down are the various proactive responses from around the world to that challenge. Thus, if rising economic inequality is the challenge and emerging issue at the top layer, approaches that create economic opportunity for the dis-enfranchised would go in the next layer. The key metaphor here is that we now live in what can be called a “global learning laboratory.” Whereas in the past both the problems people faced and the solutions created may have seemed disconnected, suddenly, in a matter of decades, we are interconnected by problems that look similar or have strong thematic overlaps underlying the processes of globalization.

In the third layer down is the ‘community of the initiative,’ which are the people, organizations, projects, etc. that participants using the futures action model can potentially partner with. They are real people and organizations that may have something to offer the start-up.

The final layer contains the core model of the initiative, this is a solution space where participants can explore the purpose, resource strategy and governance system of an initiative that can effectively address the issue or problem. This is the ‘DNA’ of the idea. An initiative will also reflect a new ‘value exchange system’ between stakeholders that may not have been connected before. This is the ecosystem of partners that makes an initiative viable. The new relationships are facilitated by the initiative – as the initiative pioneers have a ‘systems’ level mental map and understanding – they can see how different organizations and people might connect and exchange value in new ways – or they have an intuition about what relationships might be generative – even though they may not know the exact outcomes.

Futures action model has been used in facilitating youth / student empowerment and enterprise programs, for scaffolding anticipatory policy development processes, personal post-graduate coaching of project development, facilitating enterprise development, and facilitating community based social innovations.

Co-creation Cycle for Anticipatory Design

In addition to the futures action model, the most recent manifestation of my thinking to link design and foresight is a conceptualization of an action research cycle that is specifically tailored to a new generation of social innovators, social entrepreneurs and participatory designers. Reflecting on the often confusing cacophony of my own projects and work, both paid and unpaid, as well as those of colleagues, I began to search for commonalities and elements. This led to the development of an action research / action learning cycle similar to the fast cycle development process of agile software development (SCRUM). The context for this finding included a number of factors: the emergence of the network forums that amplifies idea exchange and opportunities for peer-to-peer collaboration, the experimental dynamics of colliding / integrating fields in science, art and technology which produce hybrid and often chimeric innovations, and the need to seed ideas even while maintaining a pragmatic stance toward earning an income. In this iterative process, ideas foment quickly and furiously, prototypes are developed and tested, connected with potential users who are expected to teach and lead innovators, so that ideas can be adapted and evolved or discarded for better ones.

Figure 7: Co-creation Cycle for Anticipatory Design

 Anticipate is about the great idea, the what if and what is possible. It is not necessarily about anticipating the big future (futures of society) through scenarios. It is more about what would be great, possible and socially needed now and in the emerging futures (future fit), what can be done with existing and emerging resources / technology, and the kind of future people want to live in (preferred future and values / ethics based).

This leads to the Design, conceptual or physical, of an artifact or model. For example, if dealing with a product, it can be conceptual design, graphic or technical design, or an actual physical prototype. Or if concerning a business, it can be the conceptual business model, or it can be the basic minimum scale of the business in actual form (the Minimum Viable Product offer).

The next phase is Connect, where the design, in whatever its stage, is shared and connected with intended and unintended users. Critical issues focus on usability, value, utility, inspiration and interest by the people who would use the design. Do people like it, want to share it, how well does it work? Connect is similar to David Kolb’s stage of ‘experience’ where the planned experiment is applied and experienced / observed. Because of network society dynamics, however, connect takes on much more meaning, as an idea, design or model can be distributed within a much more dynamic and complex space of engagement. A crowd funding campaign, for example is a typical mode of ‘connect’ in this Anticipatory Design space.

Evolve is the impetus to change the design and offer, try something new, or make adaptations to the existing design. It stems from the experience of connecting, what users of the design (program, project, product, or model) want and need. Depending on the nature of the connecting, the innovators may or may not know what are the best ways to change, improve or adapt it. Learning is critical here – ways that connect the innovator and user – and bring them together into a virtuous cycle of co-creation.

Conclusion: Toward a Futures Action Research[4]

It is in the interest of our many communities and humanity as a whole to develop effective action research and participatory action research approaches to engage in empowering inquiries into our futures. As can be seen from this overview, the outline of such a Futures Action Research (FAR) is still emerging. What we have at the moment are strong overlaps, with a handful of more exemplary and coherent approaches.

Addressing the great challenges we collectively face will require more than just piecemeal innovations. We need to foster a whole-scale social reorientation, whereby taking response-ability for our futures at personal, organizational and planetary scales becomes commonplace. This chapter, hopefully, is a small step in this direction, toward a more coherent and resourced understanding of a FAR approach that offers effective means of transformation in many domains.

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[1] Kind thanks to Margaret Riel for offering FAR as a potential name.

[2] I conducted a survey of practitioners in the field in two major foresight networks (the World Futures Studies Federation and the Association of Professional Futurists), asking for survey responses from those who explicitly work across the action research cycle and incorporate various elements of action research. Responses came from Luke van der Laan, Ruben Nelson, Anita Kelliher, Tanja Hichert, Robert Burke, Mike McCallum, Aaron Rosa, and Steven Gould. Much gratitude goes to them all.

[3] This chapter was enhanced from responses to a survey I sent practitioner colleagues in September of 2014.

This is a book chapter entitled “Liquid Democracy and the Futures of Governance“, which I published this year in a book edited by Jenifer Winter and Ryota Ono, entitled The Future Internet (Springer).

The chapter is a synthesis of my research in Germany in 2013-2014 on Liquid Democracy, exploring questions regarding the significance of Liquid Democracy in broader transformations in democracy and governance, and exploring the role of web technology in creating fundamentally new potentials for social interaction and decision-making among diverse social actors. A new generation of Web technologies, accompanied by new political cultures, portends an ushering of radical transformations in democratic decision-making. This is a broader theme which I explore in the web blog site reinventingdemocracy.org

The contribution this chapter makes to the overall literature is in clarifying the significance of such political innovations experiments. In particular how they prefigure two things: new political contracts and new political cultures.  

Some of the key insights from the research and study include the following:

• We are witnessing a shift from the statist system of representative (republican) democracy that emerged from the enlightenment, toward new (post-republican) possibilities signified by the movements for participatory democracy and the emerging possibilities of the World Wide Web and network-enabled collaboration.
• Experiments with Liquid Democracy / transitive voting are indicative of this shift, through the experiments conducted through Liquid Feedback and Adhocracy software, and other systems.
• These experiments highlight the distinction between shallow political participation and deep democracy—and augur both new political cultures and political contracts where they can be enacted.
• The diversification and fragmentation of existing systems of governance provides the basis for a number of possible future scenarios—with implications for how the state is engaged with governance of shared commons and emerging transnational governance systems, to name a few.

On the back of the in depth research project in Germany (over 50 interviews), the paper is organised as a strait up futures research exposition. I used the Futures Triangle and Integrated Scenarios method of Sohail Inayatullah, and Elina Hiltunen’s weak signals analysis.

A number of possible scenarios emerged from the study:

1. possible “Liquid Revolution” where online governance has transformed democracy;
2. “Steady-state Oligarchy” where pseudo-representative and oligarchic powers persist;
3. “Partner State” where representative and online variegated governance is blended; and
4. “War of the Worlds” where statist and variegated governance online systems aggressively compete for power.

Please contact me, would love to get feedback and also keen to collaborate with others on this important and critical dimension in our wellbeing.

Photo By Nicholas Zambetti – http://www.arduino.cc/, CC BY-SA 3.0, 

This essay posits the idea of ‘cosmo-localism’ (or ‘cosmo-localization’) as a potentially useful concept in both explaining a new economic model and in formulating sustainable development pathways. It is a thought stimulation exercise that invites us to join a conversation about the design of a new political economy.

The essay begins by providing an overview of the idea for cosmo-localism. Then, following the Futures Triangle template developed by Inayatullah (2008), identifies 1) drivers of change potentiating cosmo-localism, then identifies 2) the obstacles and weights of history impeding cosmo-localism, and finally ends with an exploration of 3) the emerging images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism, in particular by using Dator’s (2009) four archetypal futures images as a scaffold.

Cosmo-localism draws from previous work on alternative globalization pathways, in particular popular discourses articulating relocalization, the global network society and cosmopolitan transnational solidarity (Ramos 2010), as well as the work of Bauwens and Kostakis (2014) in articulating commons-based peer production and Kostakis et al (2015) in developing the Design Global, Manufacture Local model (DG-ML). Finally, there are projects emerging around the world that exemplify cosmo-localism, such as the Fab City initiative.

Cosmo-localism

In very basic terms cosmo-localism describes the dynamic potentials of our emerging globally distributed knowledge and design commons in conjunction with the emerging (high and low tech) capacity for localized production of value. It already exists today in many quickly maturing forms such as with Maker Bot’s Thingverse and the Global Village Construction Set, as well as medicines under Creative Commons licenses (which are then manufactured). Cosmo-localism takes place when easily accessible designs are paired with localized and distributed production capabilities using new breakthrough technologies that facilitate local manufacture / production.

As an emerging issue, cosmo-localism augurs an inversion. Traditional manufacturing and production located intellectual property within (usually) a single company, manufactured a product in a (relatively) centralized place (even if the raw materials were from elsewhere), and then exported this nationally or globally. The neo-liberal turn (starting in the 1970s) saw the emergence of the Global Factory; yet even with the globally distributed corporation, intellectual property is (usually) housed in a corporation (or sometimes licensed), and even while production can straddle a number of countries, assembly centers will then export their products nationally or globally. Cosmo-localism represents an inversion of this logic of production. With cosmo-localism, the intellectual property is available globally for all to use (or can be a Peer Production license). And distributed production centers utilizing new production technologies allow enterprises to manufacture and produce such items locally for local markets and specialized purposes.

Comparative logics  – current production and cosmo-localism

The normative impetus for cosmo-localism is based on a number of as-yet unproven assumptions:

1. that cosmo-localism can help drive the development of localized circular economies / industrial ecologies that can reduce or eliminate waste;
2. that the localized production of critical products can make a city or region more resilient in the face of financial and environmental shocks;
3. that cosmo-localism driven import substitution can generate local jobs and expertise and provide new development pathways;
4. and that the reduction of imported goods from far away places will also reduce carbon and environmental footprints.

Such assumptions, if and when they are proven to be correct, will also represent potential benefits of cosmo-localism.

Theoretically, cosmo-localism draws strongly from Bauwen’s (2006) long held argument that in today’s networked world, our economies falsely treat immaterial resources (knowledge / designs) as if they were scarce through restrictive global intellectual property regimes, and treat material resources (minerals, soils, water) as if they were abundant. Instead, Bauwens argues that immaterial resources can be shared at close to zero cost, boosting global knowledge and design capabilities, while material resources need true costings in the context of global to local sustainability challenges.

This can be extended through cosmopolitan theory, whereby a global justice imperative is applied to the heritage of the world’s knowledge and designs. If, as  Hayden proposes (Hayden, 2004, p. 70) ‘all human beings have equal moral standing within a single world community’ the global design commons should be a human right, critical in addressing poverty, sustainability challenges, addressing social challenges and empowering grassroots enterprise and entrepreneurship. And likewise in the context of global citizenship it is our responsibility to extend, support and protect our global knowledge commons.

Secondly, cosmopolitan theory also posits the idea that, as we belong to a global community that shares the same global future (e.g. climate change will affect different nationalities differently – but all will be affected), we need to create new transnational governance structures and regimes that will ensure our global mutual wellbeing (Held 2005). This second strand puts forward the need for political projects to ensure the protection of global commons. In this way, we need transnational governance structures that protect and extend global knowledge and design commons, as a key pillar in addressing our shared sustainability challenges.

Finally, cosmo-localism draws from, but also critiques and extends relocalization theory. Relocalization advocates argue for the need to eliminate imported goods and relocalize trade and production for a variety of reasons (Hines 2002; Cavanagh and Mander, 2003). First, because of transport costs and associated high carbon / environmental footprints, secondly the need to decouple from what is seen as an unstable, volatile and predatory global capitalist market system, and finally as a way to prepare for what is seen as an inevitable energy descent (the end of fossil fuels) and deal with the effects of climate change. They also argue relocalizing economies (e.g. through sharing systems) can build community solidarity, knowledge and rebalance the effects of consumer homogeneity by cultivating local culture and connection, making communities more resilient (Norberg-Hodge, 1992).

As a counterpoint, I argue that we have emerged into a global knowledge laboratory, where millions of communities are experimenting with change initiatives and sustainability efforts, and that we need to leverage off each other’s experiments and successes, often applying one community’s innovations into a new context. Decoupling from a global knowledge / design commons would therefore be fundamentally detrimental to the very goals of localized sustainability efforts. A relocalization which does not draw from a global knowledge and design commons and which is relegated to only local knowledge can at best produce ‘life boat’ relocalization and at worst will not produce basic sufficiency. Secondly, the systems and structures that allow for a healthy subsidiarity (devolution of power to the local) are mediated at state levels, nationally and through global trade regimes, and therefore the very goals implicit in the relocalization agenda require political and social action at national and transnational scales.

Drivers of change enabling cosmo-localism

In this next section I discuss the critical drivers of change enabling the potential for cosmo-localism:

1.     Global knowledge and design commons

2.     Consumer manufacturing technology

3.     Maker movement

4.     Urbanization and mega-city regions

5.     Economic precarity

6.     Resource impacts, scarcity, and circularization of economies

Knowledge and design resources for a variety of critical support systems are now available in the distributed web under open licenses (creative commons / gnu / copy left), which include: pharmaceutical drugs, food production systems, machinery, automobiles, 3d printed products, robotics, and in many other areas. Literally millions of designs are available under open licenses that allow people to do local 3-D printing, build machinery, robotics and micro-controller systems (Arduino and Raspberry Pi), and food production and agricultural systems, medical applications and medicines, and even the building of electric cars, for example the farm hack project.

A second driver of change potentiating cosmo-localism is the reduction in costs of certain manufacturing equipment. Technologies such as 3d printers, micro-controllers (Arduino/Raspberry Pi), laser cutters, and CNC Routers, that have traditionally been too expensive for individuals to own have more recently become affordable. 3D printing has gone from an expensive hobby that would have cost someone $30,000 ten years ago, and $4000 three years ago, to about $500 for a home kit today. The same cost shift is happening with other machinery. The underlying technologies that drive these machine applications are microcontroller systems, which are now cheap and accessible (also central to emerging Internet of things). While currently we can only do 3D printing with relatively small objects, there are already a number of large-scale 3D printing systems for printing houses and other items. In China inventors have 3D printed houses in under a day. And Wikispeed have developed new ways to produce open sourced cars. Enterprise 3D printing is well-established with the printing of space modules as well as engine aircraft parts. Finally new advances in distributed energy production and storage mean that cosmo-localism may locate across urban, peri-urban and rural forms.

A third factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is the maker movement. The maker movement is a very broad church and includes everything from preindustrial handcrafts such as jewelry making (e.g. the Etsy marketplace), textile making to well-established industrial crafts such as metal foundry work, power-based woodwork and welding, but also straddling the high-tech end of the spectrum. The grassroots maker movement has a strong commitment to open source and knowledge justice approaches, localization, community learning and sustainable closed loop / circular economy strategies. Reuse, repair, repurpose are common words. The potential of the maker movement for cosmo-localism lies in this broad church beginning to learn from each other’s knowledges and capabilities and to collaborate on the design and manufacturing of things that require a high level of coordination or organization. At the moment the maker movement is a fluid network, dynamic, creative and explosive, but not yet coordinated toward mainstream material production. To make things for commerce requires disciplined coordination, organization and capital, more typical of industrial models.

The fourth major factor driving the potential for cosmo-localism is rapid urbanization, and along with this the emergence of mega-city regions. The rise of mega-city regions potentiates cosmo-localism, because cities are locales of diverse production capacities, knowledge / expertise, human, natural and built resources, as well as diverse needs and markets. Mega-city regions have scales which allow for localized production capacities to cater to large populations. Because of proximity, a city can develop circular economies and close resource and waste loops easier than perhaps far flung regions (however acknowledging that regionally disparate locales can still be critical in closing resource loops). Cities would not be able to produce all the things they need, and many things would still need to be imported through trade and the global economy. Yet emerging creative industry and demands for urban sustainability and economic inclusion may drive cities and especially mega-cities as locales where cosmo-localism is developed.

Economic precarity has hit many countries, for example Argentina after their 2001-2002 financial crisis, the US after the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone after the Eurozone crisis, Venezuela today and in many other regions. This has had a particularly devastating effect on young people. Where people are excluded from the dominant market system, they must create alternative subsistence systems. Castells sees the emergence of ‘new economic cultures’ from populations which, in addition to looking for ways out of the dominant economic system, simply cannot afford to consume goods from the dominant system. In terms of cosmo-localism, both values and need drive a new type of social actor which can leverage the global design commons and community maker space-based production in ways that can produce agency, empowerment and livelihood for people in need. Cosmo-localism potentially creates enterprise opportunities for those people out of work to create livelihoods, or at least to begin to experiment with new production potentials. To the extent that cosmo-localism is seen as a way to support citizen livelihoods, we may see cosmo-localism taken up as state or city supported process.

The final factor that potentiates cosmo-localism relates to ecological crisis and the need to create breakthroughs in innovating closed loop and waste eliminating modes of production. As resources become more and more scarce into the future we will need to become much more adept at upcycling and repurposing things in general. Mapping, collaboration and sharing platforms are helping localities to develop exchange ecosystems which provide new foundations for localized resource exchanges, the development of ‘circular’ economies and more ambitiously industrial ecologies. Cosmo-localism includes the potential to map and activate local resource ecosystems and combine new production capacities with urban metabolic flows that can reduce or eliminate waste. Localized industrial-urban metabolisms may be key to generating environmental integrity outcomes.

Weight of history and obstacles to cosmo-localism

In addition to drivers potentiating cosmo-localism, there are equally powerful ‘weights of history’, legacy systems, cultural factors and other obstacles to cosmo-localism. These include:

1.     Platform oligopolies

2.     Economic incumbents

3.     Intellectual property regimes

4.     Consumer culture

Platform oligopoly is the first challenge to cosmo-localism, the power of the big Silicon Valley enterprises to monopolize and potentially suppress the potentials for cosmo-localism. Big platforms, like Facebook and Google, but now sharing platforms like Air BnB and Uber derive value from our practices of relationality. There is great value in the things that they have innovated, and yet the monetary value generated by users on these platforms through their sharing and interactions are not shared for social reinvestment back to the user’s communities. Michel Bauwens calls this ‘netarchical capitalism’, whereby platforms get wealthy at the expense of contributors, who enter into a form of economic dependence / precarity with such platforms. Cosmo-localism relies on supporting a global knowledge / design commons while supporting investment in localized maker enterprises. Cosmo-localism based on extractive platforms would be stunted, as cosmo-localism requires systems for localized re-investment that are now being discussed as platform cooperativism.

Another major obstacle is political in nature. What we consume is based on the legacy of industrial production, and there are many economic incumbents that do not want to lose business. As with resistance to AirbnB and Uber, incumbents may lobby governments vigorously to make life more difficult for cosmo-localism start up enterprises. In the US, policymaking has been co-opted by moneyed interests, to a large extent. For cosmo-localism to work it has to go beyond the local, and the state should not be abandoned as a locale in the adjudication of power. To counter this, there will need to be alliances of commons-based enterprises that work together to form cosmo-local public advocacy that is able to create favorable policy conditions for it. Bauwens has argued we need to create a “partner state” model where governments actively support localized commons-based peer production and cosmo-localism. Recently he has pioneered such a model through the FLOK project in Ecuador.

The third obstacle relates to intellectual property. The global policy pushed through the WTO TRIPS and now the Transpacific Partnership all have a common aim of enfolding joining nations into the Western European intellectual property regime based on positivist law. Positivist law in the most basic terms is simply contractual law. It does not acknowledge contextual, ethical, cultural or historical dimensions in the use or possession or governance of a thing; it simply says, if you signed a contract – hand it over or else. This is why when certain companies can buy a life support resource from a government, such as when Bechtel bought Cochabamba’s water supply, and then hike the price for water for locals. Buying and selling life support systems is perfectly ‘just’ within the framework of positivist law, but it is often in contradiction to the living conditions and needs of people. Today there are people dying from diseases around the world because they cannot get access to cheaper versions of the medicines that would cure their diseases. This is because certain intellectual property regimes do not allow people to produce local versions. A global neoliberal push that envelops the world in an intellectual property regime that treats knowledge as scarce, and based purely on the logic of investment and return, will harm the possibility of cosmo-localism. We need to normalize knowledge and design commons through our own work, and develop knowledge / design sharing and licensing systems that frees knowledge to transform the world in positive ways. As Kostakis & Bauwens argue, “the commons [need to] be created and fought for on a transnational global scale” (2015, p. 130).

The last weight of history is the cultural pattern of consumerism. It has been deeply engrained through the last century, whereby people have been taught and have learned a number of ideas and attitudes. That our self worth is based on what we own and consume. That it does not matter where a product comes from and where it goes after use. That other people make things for us, and we just make the money to buy those things. That if something breaks it is better to just buy a new one rather than fix the old one. Cosmo-localism is antithetical to consumer culture, and requires people to be willing to learn how to make things, be willing to tinker and fix things (or know others who can!), to get lost in problem solving and be patient enough to wade through, to work with people and share and learn, and to care where something goes and something came from, ultimately to close resources and waste cycles.

Images of the future

To conclude this exploratory essay, there are a number of images of the future that connect with cosmo-localism. To structure this I use Dator’s four archetypal images of the future, as a starting point, with an acknowledgment that deeper scenario work still needs to be done.

Continued growth: cosmo-localism co-opted

In a continued growth future, we would likely see the big players in networked capitalism, the platform oligarchies of Google, Facebook, Apple, (possibly Maker Bot) and other netarchical capitalist forms, play a key role in capturing (and stunting) the potential for cosmo-localism (e.g. Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™)

In this scenario, fabrication spaces could be put into a franchise model, whereby, given the corporate form’s adept talent at systematizing profitable models, pop up everywhere, disrupting industries connected to material production. As platforms, similar to the AirBnb and Uber models, people can put their designs up on the platform to be used, but the platform would take a large percentage of the profits of their use. Design contributors make a subsistence income (as with Uber or Taskrabbit), but never enough to finance and develop a robust self generating business, and creating a dependence relationship.

Because the corporate form survives and indeed prospers by finding cost saving loopholes (tax havens, sweatshops) and by virtue of this creates social and ecological externalities, it is unlikely that such franchises and systems would have a commitment to developing circular economies and industrial ecologies that address our real sustainability crisis. While initially these franchises could create jobs (while disrupting others), much like Uber’s plans to utilize self driving cars, Google Make ™ and Facebook Fabricate ™ type enterprises could eventually be fully automated.

Ultimately the promise of the global knowledge / design commons has been transformed into the ‘poverty of the commons’ – whereby capital preys on and reproduces itself through the generosity of contributors worldwide.

Collapse: cosmo-localism as civilizational boostrapping  

A collapse scenario, arguably, creates the fastest road to empowering a cosmo-localism process, but not without many problems. In such a scenario, whether because of massive environmental, economic or political disruptions, societies are thrown into ‘life-boat’ systems of survival. Without globalization, without income or with hyper inflation, food shortages, water shortages, energy blackouts, and the like, cosmo-localism becomes an important survivalist / prepper strategy.

Communities and cities would need to quickly develop basic self sufficiency, and no doubt would leverage cosmo-localism to make this possible. Key would be knowledge of machines, medicines, food production, water systems, building, vehicles, etc. How would people access these, however, if there were no trans-national systems and structures to maintain a globally distributed web, cloud services, regulatory agencies, maintenance of satellites, and cooperative systems for dealing with web security (e.g. hacking)?

In such a scenario, access to a global knowledge / design commons would not exist, or would be limited or impaired. Instead it is likely that people would form mesh networks, use slow sync cloud systems to deal with frequent service or access disruptions, would experience severe hacking and web virus disruptions, and would struggle just to maintain local basic infrastructure while globally the web is plunged into anarchy.

Breakthroughs in local fabrication technologies a distant memory, such communities would struggle to maintain a survival-tech level of productive capacity, reliant on whatever global knowledge resource can be accessed or salvaged.

Over time, however, cosmo-localism might support a civilisational bootstrapping, as trans-regional networks and value exchange systems widen, allowing a DGML economy to work.

Disciplined descent: League of cosmo-localized city states 

In a disciplined descent scenario, cities, in particular mega-cities linked through transnational networks, play a critical role in navigating escalating ecological, resource and political challenges. Globalization was another era, and in this scenario people live in the era of trans-city alliances.

Disrupted trade and shipping costs may prompt cities to play critical roles in cosmo-local production of basic necessities and goods. Because of fiscal constraints cities might create city-wide sharing economy and solidarity systems, whereby all able bodied citizens are asked to provide a quota of time-banked support, or else publically shamed / punished. Resource, energy and waste limits force cities to create circular economies that close resource loops. This transformation from cities of waste to cities of social and ecological discipline requires revolutionary zeal, and non-conformists are dealt with harshly, or banished to the peripheries. (See the sci-fi story “The Exterminator’s Want-Ad” by Bruce Sterling in Shareable Futures, for an example of this.)

Because cities have scale, knowledge, resources, markets and human resources, they are able to implement cosmo-localist initiatives to make them as self-sufficient as possible. Cities, in particular large cities and megacity regions, produce their own vehicles, food production systems (for use in cities and rural areas), computer systems, machinery, textiles, and many other goods. To do this, cosmo-localism plays a critical role in allowing cities to access knowledge and designs being produced worldwide, and in particular by other cities endogenizing production. Technology continues to advance and be shared, in particular to support the viability of urban centers. (See FabCity as early examples).

Intercity credits allow for value exchange within the city and between peripheral cities. Trans-city credit systems allow value exchange between large cities globally, greasing the process of cosmo-localism by allowing non-material value exchange (ideas / designs) using the global design commons primarily driven and run by city alliances, and supporting critical non-cosmo-localist trade.

Transformation: Transnational commons economy

A transformation scenario is one where cosmo-localism is supported by a ‘Partner State’, as articulated by Bauwens, and in which cosmo-localism has genuinely made a big impact in addressing local to global sustainability and social justice challenges. In the Partner State model, the state plays an important role in investing in commons based peer production, and the capacity for citizens and people to utilize open knowledge to empower themselves and produce for their communities. From a cosmo-localism perspective, the state would also support grassroots efforts to empower localized designing, making, and sharing efforts.

Because the state’s strategy is explicitly the grassroots empowerment of maker enterprises, it is assumed that in a transformation scenario, communities and people would be able to make great strides in eliminating poverty and addressing sustainability challenges. Empowered with a knowledge and design commons, state support and new technologies allowing localizing manufacturing and production, people would have new possibilities to shape their worlds.

Another aspect of a transform scenario is the elimination of manufactured goods with high waste by-products, leveraging the potentials of additive manufacturing techniques, and radical reductions in pollution related to global transport (assuming a process of import substitution). This transform scenario would require some kind of localization strategy. Here this is imagined as ‘micro-clusters’ of new cosmo-localism ecosystems.

Industrial clusters and corridors have been well established for decades, but are large scale and require intensive capital investment. Cosmo-localism technologies and the geography of mega-city regions would allow for micro-clusters to emerge quickly and fluidly. The following may be features of such cosmo-local micro-clusters:

• The development of community and worker owned and run maker enterprises (in line with Open Cooperativist principles) with high tech fabrication equipment, initiated by community but supported by the state;
• Micro-cluster coordination: local enterprise ecosystems instantiated through sharing and exchange platforms (software systems) with human supported administration and support that do resource and needs matching, fulfilling the possibility of circular economic / closed loop production;
• Micro-clusters are made up of enterprises using Open Value Network (OVN) principles, which provide social inclusion at a community level, endogenize peer produced value into cooperative enterprises, while exogenizing design and knowledge value to the global commons;
• New systems for capital investment that, while not following the Silicon Valley venture capital model, allow maker enterprises to scale quickly, in conjunction with the use of Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (CBRL) that provide an economic engine for commons oriented open cooperatives;

Reduction in the costs of start ups, lower risk and lower barriers to entry, allowing regions to target imports for substitution, and to export knowledge and design as resources using CBRLs.

Local and Global online and cyber currencies / credit systems may play a major role in cosmo-localims, facilitating the exchange of economic value and investments across space and time in ways that are not constrained by traditional currency capital flows, some which may incorporate CBRL principles (a credit system for open cooperatives). These may combine with OVN architectures such that commons-based peer to peer production is nurtured and supported at the macro-economic level (via CBRLs) and micro economic (OVN based enterprises). Finally, cyber and online currencies may play a major role in allowing for exchange between micro-cluster regions, Phyles and Transnational Economic Collectives – such that trade facilitates and enhances localized production rather than just displacing non-local goods and the jobs based on them.

Conclusion

Cosmo-localization is not a silver bullet for solving the world’s challenges, or the ills of globalization. It provides an opportunity, which will play out differently depending on the alternative futures we encounter and help create. As an emerging issue and opportunity, it is important for us to consider its limitations, potential for co-option, abuse and indeed its capacity to transform. In the coming years we will be pressed to make bold decisions and experiments that help us address our social and ecological challenges, decisions and experiments which need to be guided by a robust understanding of cosmo-localism potential benefits and potential shadow. I hope this essay provides one useful stepping-stone on this path. I invite us to join a conversation about what cosmo-localism may mean for  the political-economy that we want to create for our shared and common futures.

References

Bauwens, M. (2006). The Political Economy of Peer Production. Post-Autistic Economics Review (37).

Cavanagh, J., Mander, J. (2003). Alternatives to Economic Globalisation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Hayden, P. (2004). Cosmopolitanism and the need for Transnational Criminal Justice: The Case of the International Criminal Court. Theoria (August ).

Held, D. (2005). At the Global Crossroads: The End of the Washington Consensus and the Rise of Global Social Democracy? Globalizations, 2(1), pp. 95–113.

Hines, C. (2002). Localization: A Global Manifesto. UK: Earthscan.

Kostakis, V. & Bauwens, M. (2014). Network society and future scenarios for a collaborative economy. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan

Kostakis, V. Niaros, V. Dafermos, G. & Bauwens, M. (2015) Design global, manufacture local: Exploring the contours of an emerging productive model, Futures 73 (2015) 126–135

Norberg-Hodge, H. (1992). Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. San Francisco: Sierra Book Club.

Ramos, J. Bauwens, M. and Kostakis, V. (Forthcoming 2016), P2P and Planetary Futures, In Carson, R. (Ed.), Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures, Springer, Zurich.

 

Dr. José Ramos is a social change researcher, trans disciplinary collaborator and advocate for commons oriented social alternatives. His focus is on supporting breakthrough  design and social innovation through his practices Action Foresight and FuturesLab and in leading and supporting a wide number of high impact social change projects. He is originally from California from Mexican-American heritage, now living in Melbourne Australia with his young family.