Breaking out of conventions: How scenario planners can increase their reflexivity regarding societal imaginaries

Abstract

Futures imagined in scenario processes reflect both stakeholder perspectives and broader societal imaginaries: collectively-held, institutionally-stabilized visions of the future. The presence of imaginaries has mostly remained implicit in studies of scenario planning, especially in development contexts. We argue that scenario planning will benefit from reflexivity regarding imaginaries. Here, reflexivity refers to an awareness regarding different perspectives, assumptions, values, and—oft-hidden—politics at play. We developed a framework of relevant imaginaries and assessed how and to what extent these are expressed in scenario narratives, through analyzing seven scenario sets focused on agriculture, food security and climate change in the Global South. Our results show that neoliberal and sustainable development imaginaries are dominant in these scenarios. Imaginaries from the Global South are scarcely represented—arguably because of that, we observe few regional perspectives on potential challenges in these scenario sets. We conclude that the scenario sets offer effective critique on neoliberal mechanisms and global development dynamics, but do not provide significant room for transformational alternatives from the Global South. We argue that opening up explorative scenario planning to more pluralistic conceptions of the future can greatly enhance its reflexivity, and a representative mix of imaginaries allows for scenario planning that leads to more transformational policies.