Featuring chapters from an international range of leading and emerging scholars, this Handbook provides a collection of cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that sheds new light on contemporary futures studies. Engaging with key defining questions of the early twenty-first century such as climate change, big data, AI, the future of economics, education, mental health, cities and more, the Handbook provides a review and synthesis of futures scholarship, highlighting the role that societies can and should play in their making. While the various chapters demonstrate how futures emerge and take shape in particular places at particular times, the distinctive insight provided by the volume overall is that futures thinking today must be social and contextual. By presenting a range of futures work from contexts around the globe, the Handbook contextualizes techniques – forecasting, backcasting, scenario planning, collaboration and co-production– to ask how different dimensions of the social are created and circulated in the process. Through its thirty chapters, the volume explores and interrogates narratives, anticipations, enactments, ecologies, collaborations, prospections and so on to highlight which versions of the social are legitimized and which are encouraged and foreclosed. This Handbook opens an important conversation about the centrality of the social in futures thinking. By bringing arts, humanities and social sciences scholars and practitioners into conversation with biologists, environmental, climate and computer scientists, this volume seeks to encourage new pathways across, between and within multiple disciplines to interrogate the futures we need and want. The social must be our starting point if we are to steer our planet in a direction that supports good lives for the many, everywhere.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What would a de-carbonised society be like? What are the implications of a general de-globalisation for our social futures? How will our high-carbon patterns of life be restructured in a de-energized world? As global society gradually wakes up to the new reality of peak oil, these questions remain unanswered. For the last hundred years oil made the world go round, and as we move into the century of 'tough oil' this book examines some profound consequences. It considers what societies would be like that are powering down; what lessons can be learned from the past about de-energized societies; will there be rationing systems or just the market to allocate scarce energy? Can virtual worlds solve energy problems? What levels of income and wellbeing would be likely? In this groundbreaking book, John Urry analyzes how the twentieth century created a kind of mirage of the future that is unsustainable into even the medium term and envisions the future of an oil-dependent world facing energy descent. Without a large-scale plan B, how can the energizing of society possibly be going into reverse?

After celebrating 50 years of independence, Singapore is focused on the question of what the future may bring. The future is neither predetermined nor random. How the chapter turns out will be affected by many economic and social forces, but much will also depend on how Singapore and Singaporeans choose to contribute to it.Singapore is likely to do well if important unresolved issues can be identified and addressed, especially those that require some mindset changes in individuals, the community and the government. Several questions have become more salient in recent years as Singapore society underwent significant changes. What does the future hold for Singapore society? Can people in Singapore really respect and embrace diversity of views and mindsets for a better society? How can the nation develop a diversity that enhances innovation, addresses issues, maintains social cohesion and contributes to people's well-being? What are some ways to build social-psychological capital in individuals and communities to develop a strong society that is resilient to shocks, failures and unmet expectations? Is it possible to move from a society where the role of government is dominant in many areas to one where individuals and communities step up to co-create whole-of-society solutions?This book, based on the proceedings at the Behavioural Sciences Institute Conference 2016, explores these and other issues about the social futures of Singapore. The book is organized into four parts. Part I provides an overview of issues involved in thinking about the social futures of Singapore society. Part II examines social futures from the perspectives of healthcare and education. Part III analyses the relationships linking social futures to the notion of giving and the increasing influence of social media. Part IV addresses specific questions on social futures of Singapore society in terms of social and national identities, cultural values, relationship between economic development and environmental sustainability, religious consciousness, perceptions of political leaders, and relationships between people and government.

It is a commonly held assumption among cultural, social, and political psychologists that imagining the future of societies we live in has the potential to change how we think and act in the world. However little research has been devoted to whether this effect exists in collective imaginations, of social groups, communities and nations, for instance. This book explores the part that imagination and creativity play in the construction of collective futures, and the diversity of outlets in which these are presented, from fiction and cultural symbols to science and technology. The authors discuss this effect in social phenomena such as in intergroup conflict and social change, and focus on several cases studies to illustrate how the imagination of collective futures can guide social and political action. This book brings together theoretical and empirical contributions from cultural, social, and political psychology to offer insight into our constant (re)imagination of the societies in which we live.

Thinking about the future is essential for almost all organizations and societies. States, corporations, universities, cities, NGOs and individuals believe they cannot miss the future. But what exactly is the future? It remains a mystery – perhaps the greatest mystery, especially because futures are unpredictable and often unknowable, the outcome of many factors, known and unknown. The future is rarely a simple extrapolation from the present. In this important book, John Urry seeks to capture the many efforts that have been made to anticipate, visualize and elaborate the future. This includes examining the methods used to model the future, from those of the RAND Corporation to imagined future worlds in philosophy, literature, art, film, TV and computer games. He shows that futures are often contested and saturated with different interests, especially in relation to future generations. He also shows how analyses of social institutions, practices and lives should be central to examining potential futures, and issues such as who owns the future. The future seems to be characterized by 'wicked problems'. There are multiple 'causes' and 'solutions', long-term lock-ins and complex interdependencies, and different social groups have radically different frames for understanding what is at stake. Urry explores these issues through case-studies of 3D printing and the future of manufacturing, mobilities in the city, and the futures of energy and climate change.

Recent writing on education and social change, and a growing number of new governmental initiatives across Western societies have proceeded in denial or ignorance of the personal missions and biographical trajectories of key public sector personnel. This book stems from an underpinning belief that we have to understand the personal biographical if we are to understand the fate of social and political initiatives. In education a pattern has emerged in many countries around the world. Each new government enshrines targets and tests to ensure that teachers at the frontline delivery are ‘more accountable’. Whilst this often provides evidence of symbolic action to the electorate or professional audiences, the evidence at the level of service delivery is often far less impressive. Targets, tests and tables may win wide support from the public, but there are often negligible or even contradictory effects at the point of delivery, enforced by the ignorance or denial of personal missions and biographical mandates. This book locates most of its analysis and discussion at the point of culture clash between centralised dictates, and individual and collective life missions. Whilst the early part of the book considers a range of issues related to school curriculum, the focus on the biographical and life narrative becomes increasingly important as the analysis proceeds. Curriculum, Personal Narrative and the Social Future will be of key interest to practising teachers, educational researchers and students on teacher training courses, postgraduate courses and doctoral courses.