Short Abstract:

The idea of development is rooted in history but also infused with the idea of anticipation - bringing the future as well as the past into present thinking. The panel will engage with the field of future/foresight studies, and explore its actual and potential interface with development studies.

Long Abstract:

The aim of the panel is to assess both how development studies contribute to wider thinking about the future, and what other social science perspectives on anticipating the future have to offer those engaged with development. Diverse contributions are welcome that relate to any of the following.

1. The actual or potential (ir)relevance to development practice and/or development studies of different approaches to foresight thinking – including scenario planning, forecasting, backcasting, planning, participatory programme design, and prefiguration.

2. The anticipatory assumptions embedded in development thinking, including their philosophical and disciplinary roots as explored by Poli (2014). This lens may be applied, for example, to research into unfolding crises and the idea of poly-crisis, the SDGs, climate change, energy transitions towards net zero, theory-of-change informed development interventions, and anticipatory humanitarian action.

3. Approaches not only to anticipating the future more accurately but to living better with uncertainty – e.g. by fostering resilience, deep adaptation, and receptivity to emergence based on complexity informed social science.

4. The future of development studies itself, its contested boundaries, and how it relates to other disciplines including futures studies and decolonial studies.

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