In this chapter, I consider corporate foresight in three ways: what it is, what it does, and what it could become, from a situated and partial perspective of a transdisciplinary practitioner and action researcher. I weave my arguments along the following structure: ‘Genealogy of Corporate Foresight’ considers some definitions and frameworks in the field and how they have been shaped in the modern era, alongside other strands, in answer to the question ‘what is corporate foresight?’ Next, ‘The Challenge’ describes the current predicament and what it asks of us, and how corporate foresight might be ambivalent about its purposes and occludent about its roots. This is in answer to the question ‘what does corporate foresight do?’ and presents critiques to chrononormativity by minority groups in the ‘traditions of the oppressed’ who are deemed anachronistic and ‘out of time’ by the temporality of neoliberal progress that reproduces itself. ‘Creative Anticipation’ deepens the inquiry from a post-conventional perspective and asks ‘what could strategic foresight become?’ in second-order, living anticipatory systems. By focusing on the multidimensional, thick present, and situating the foresight practitioner as internal to a collective intelligence system able to reflect and act on the consequences of anticipatory assumptions, creative anticipation opens up potential for generative and acausal shifts in historical patterns by creatively breaking out of the tendency to do more of the same. The text ends with some questions and thoughts in the vast openness and incompleteness by way of a ‘(Non-)conclusion’.
-
Akomolafe, B. (2017) These Wilds beyond Our Fences. North Atlantic Books. Kindle edition.
-
Andersson, J. (2018) The Future of the World. Futurology, Futurists, and the Struggle for the Post-Cold War Imagination. Oxford University Press. Kindle edition.
-
Anzaldua, G. (2002) ‘now let us shift … the path of conocimiento … inner work, public acts’, in Gloria E. Anzaldúa & AnaLouise Keating (Eds.), This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. Routledge, p. 540. Kindle edition.
-
Anzaldua, G. (2012) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books, 4th edition.
-
Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Half Way: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press.
-
Braidotti, R. (2013) The Posthuman. Polity. Kindle edition.
-
Brassett, J., & O’Reilly, J. (2021) A Creative Philosophy of Anticipation. Futures in the Gaps of the Present. Routledge. Kindle edition.
-
Cornish, E. (2004) Futuring: The Exploration of the Future. World Future Society.
-
Curry, A. (2021) ‘A beginning,’ in Routledge Handbook of Social Futures. Routledge. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780429440717-2. Accessed July 30, 2023.
-
Deleuze, G. (2014) Difference and Repetition. Bloomsbury Academic. Kindle edition.
-
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2013) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Bloomsbury Academic. Kindle edition.
-
Demos, T.J. (2023) Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come. Sternberg Press.
-
Eshun, K. (2003) ‘Further Considerations on Afrofuturism,’ The New Centennial Review, 3(2), 287–302.
-
Hamel, G., & Prahalad, C.K. (1994) Competing for the Future. Harvard Business Review Press.
-
Harney, S., & Moten, F. (2013) The Undercommons. Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Minor Compositions. Kindle edition.
-
Hein, S. (2017) ‘Deleuze’s New Image of Thought: Challenging the Dogmatic Image of Thought in Qualitative Inquiry,’ Qualitative Inquiry, 23(9), 656–65.
-
Heron, J., & Reason, P. (1997) ‘A Participatory Inquiry Paradigm,’ Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3), 274–94.
-
Hines, A., & Bishop, P. (2007) Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight. Hinesight. 2nd edition 2015. Kindle edition.
-
Hodgson, A. (2020) Systems Thinking for a Turbulent World. Taylor and Francis. Kindle edition.
-
Inayatullah, S. (2004) ‘Causal Layered Analysis: Theory, Historical Context, and Case Studies,’ in S. Inayatullah (Ed.), The Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) Reader. Tamkang University Press.
-
Keating, A. (2006) ‘From Borderlands and New Mestizas to Nepantlas and Nepantleras. Anzaldúan Theories for Social Change,’ Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, IV, Special Issue, Summer.
-
Keating, A. (2023) ‘Post-Oppositional Tactics for Transformation,’ in Gabrielle Donnelly & Alfonso Montuori (Eds.), Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures (Routledge Environment and Sustainability Handbooks), p. 192. Taylor and Francis. Kindle edition.
-
Keeling, K. (2019) Queer Times, Black Futures. NYU Press.
-
Larsen, N., Feukeu, K.E., & Karuri-Sebina, G. (2022) ‘Decolonising Futures: An Interview with Pioneering Futurists Geci Karuri-Sebina and Kwamou Eva Feukeu on the Development of Africa’s Future,’ Farsight, CIFS. https://farsight.cifs.dk/applied-futures/. Accessed September 4, 2023.
-
Lugones, M. (2003) Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition against Multiple Oppressions. Rowman & Littlefield. Kindle edition.
-
Manning, E. (2016) The Minor Gesture. Duke University Press. Kindle edition.
-
Miller, R. (2018) Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century. Routledge.
-
Monbiot, G. (2007) ‘How the Neoliberals Stitched up the Wealth of Nations for Themselves,’ Guardian, August 28. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree /2007/aug/28/comment.businesscomment. Accessed May 1, 2023.
-
Montuori, A., & Donnelly, J. (2023) ‘Why Creative Futures?’ in Gabrielle Donnelly & Alfonso Montuori (Eds.), Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures. Taylor and Francis. Kindle edition.
-
O’Reilly, J. (2021) ‘Becoming Other-wise as the Practice of Anticipation,’ in Jaimie Brassett & John O’Reilly (Eds.), A Creative Philosophy of Anticipation. Futures in the Gaps of the Present. Routledge. Kindle edition.
-
Ogilvy, J. (2011) ‘Facing the Fold: From the Eclipse of Utopia to the Restoration of Hope,’ Foresight, 13(4), 7–23.
-
Poli, R. (2017) Introduction to Anticipation Studies. Springer. Kindle edition.
-
Quicho, A. (2022) ‘Tropical Futurism Envisions the Climate of Our Fate,’ Wired, January 9. https://www.wired.com/story/futurism-climate-change-tropics-art/. Accessed September 25, 2023.
-
Ramos, J. (2020) ‘Messy Grace: The Mutant Futures Program,’ in Marcus Bussey & Camila Mozzini-Alister (Eds.), Phenomenologies of Grace: The Body, Embodiment, and Transformative Futures. Palgrave Macmillan. Kindle edition.
-
Seefried, E. (2014) ‘Steering the Future. The Emergence of “Western” Futures Research and Its Production of Expertise, 1950s to Early 1970s,’ European Journal of Futures Research, 15(29).
-
Schwartz, P. (1997) The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World. John Wiley & Sons, new edition.
-
Shaw, M. (2022) ‘Navigating the Mysteries,’ Emergence Magazine, May 12.
-
Springgay, S,. & Truman, S. (2019) ‘Counterfuturisms and Speculative Temporalities: Walking Research-Creation in School,’ International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(6), 547–59.
-
Torbert, W. (2003) ‘Transforming Inquiry and Action: Interweaving 27 Flavors of Action Research,’ Action Research, 1(2), 133–52.
-
Torbert, W. (2004) Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
-
Torbert, W. (2013) ‘Listening into the Dark: An Essay Testing the Validity and Efficacy of Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry for Describing and Encouraging Transformations of Self, Society, and Scientific Inquiry,’ Integral Review, 9(2), June.
-
Voros, J. (2003) ‘A Generic Foresight Process Framework,’ Foresight, 5(3), 10–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14636680310698379.
-
Watkins, M. (2000) Invisible Guests. Spring Publications.
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your Elgar Online account
