National cultures and traditions in foresight and futures studies

One of the key questions in foresight and futures studies concerns the availability of frameworks for understanding of how individuals and groups use ideas of the future to act in the present. This question particularly relates to how the future is anticipated and studied across national cultures and traditions. It is recently noted that the practices and methodologies of foresight and futures studies are crafted from Western models and futures thinking (Jones, 2019). Additionally, scholars have pointed out how Western practices of deliberating what constitutes ethics and responsibility are also approached from largely Western perspectives, even as they attempt to be inclusive of diverse experiences (Valkenburg et al., 2020). As a response to this concern, a literature has appeared on differences between foresight and futures studies in the ‘West’ and East Asia (e.g., Park, 2013; Cruz et al., 2016). Others have reported on approaches to futures studies from the global South broadly speaking (e.g., Fox et al., 2012) and religious aspects (e.g., Sardar, 2006). Hence, the paper aims to analyse aspects of national traditions and cultures in foresight and futures studies. We do not seek to pigeon holing different cultures or approaches but rather to discuss the most essential aspects – or dimensions – to consider in foresight and scenario planning across national cultures and traditions.

As a theoretical and conceptual framework, the paper draws on two streams of literature. First, we draw on sociologists’ and anthropologists’ perceptions of culture as formulated in Geert Hofstede’s definitions and dimensions of national culture (Hofstede, 1980). Second, we draw the STS literature, particularly the concept of ‘civic epistemologies’ (Jasanoff, 2005). Methodologically, our study is based on a semi-systematic review of conceptual and practice-oriented literature in foresight and futures studies.