by Helen Manchester
In early November I had the pleasure of presenting at the national Locality Convention. Locality, one of the Centre’s strategic partners, is a member organisation with over 1500 members, many of them community anchor organisations who work with minoritised communities across the UK.
I had the pleasure of presenting alongside inspiring speakers LaKisha Williams, David Nugent, Afka Ray and Makala Cheung.
Through my research I come in to contact with many community-sector leaders. When I ask them about how they feel about the future they tell me they work in the immediate present, reactive to the communities that they serve in real time, dealing with complex issues immediately – not 6 or even 3 months down the line.
So why do we, in the Centre for Sociodigital Futures, think futures matter?
Firstly, we are living in a time of at least three interlocking crisis characterised by:
- structural injustices
- devastation of the planet
- the redefinition of what it means to be human– through the development of technologies, biosciences and genomics.
This is creating a huge sense of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity related to our own and others futures and, as a result, is increasing fears and anxieties.
Futures matter because many of us see these fears and anxieties about the future play out in the communities we work with in the everyday present.
Secondly, futures matter because of questions of power and social justice. Current visions around futures are often determined by powerful actors such as technology companies, large multinationals or political states. For me and many others, this doesn’t feel right.
Putting the community first
That’s why I think it’s vital to involve communities in futures thinking. To go beyond hopes to support communities to dream. And to make visible and tangible some of these neglected future visions.
What’s the starting point for this community-led participatory futures work? For me, it’s a recognition that, despite claims being made by large organisations and powerful individuals, we can’t predict the future. Instead, what if we start from a position that assumes no single future exists and instead we face multiple complex and uncertain futures?
What if we thought about futures making as a building site where anyone can participate in supporting the construction of something different?
If futures are ‘in the making’ in this way then how might we work to include communities in imagining their own preferable, and frankly so far, neglected futures visible and real? There are some barriers to this that we need to take seriously:
We are all really busy dealing with the terrible problems of the everyday present and the injustices of the past.
Futures thinking is also hard work – we’re fighting against a whole set of ideas and visions from people much more powerful than we feel. We often don’t believe we have sufficient power or agency.
At the Centre for Sociodigital Futures we are experimenting around the question of ‘What kinds of approaches might help us to do participatory futuring/dreaming together?’ How can we ‘hold’ anxieties, recognise past and present injustices and build power over futures in communities?
We see an important role for researchers, artists and community organisers and activists, in working with communities to support the building of capacities and capabilities for futures making. We hope this work may enable more people to feel they have power in building the positive kinds of futures they want for themselves and their families.
For more information on the work of the Centre for Sociodigital Futures, join our mailing list, follow us on X and LinkedIn or visit our webpage.