Book Review for The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies 2020 Volume 1 Part 1
I recently finished reading Volume 1 of The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies 2020 edited by Richard Slaughter and Andy Hines.
It's a collection of articles that present abridged and condensed versions of seminal works (books, papers) in futures studies.
In the "Introduction to Volume 1: Foundations," editor Richard Slaughter brilliantly summarizes and highlights each article. Instead of reiterating these summaries, I will write about the ideas that are currently buzzing in my head after reading them. Thus, these book notes are also my attempt to pose questions to the community and provoke interesting discussions and idea exchanges.
Chapter 1: Yesterday’s Futures over Three Millennia, drawn from Gidley, J. (2017). The Future: A Very Short Introduction.
Having read the full book before, I wrote a more traditional book summary-style review, which you can find here https://lnkd.in/eDkN-9zJ
Chapter 2: Mapping Fifty Years of Futures Studies Scholarship (1968–2017) is an abridged version of Alex Fergnani, (2019). Mapping futures studies scholarship from 1968 to present: A bibliometric review of thematic clusters, research trends, and research gaps. Futures, 105:104–123.
- The network visualization of bibliometric maps looks amazing and fruitfully identifies many research trends and gaps. Two questions are on my mind:
- Can we automate the process to such an extent that it's done in near-real-time (on a rolling basis), allowing researchers around the world to coordinate their efforts in tackling these gaps?
- More ambitiously, with LLM AI, can we move beyond bibliographic data to analyze the actual arguments and research results of the papers?
Chapter 3: The State of Play in the Futures Field: 10 Years On updates Slaughter, R. (2009). “The state of play in the Futures field: A metascanning overview.” Foresight, 11(5), 6–20.
- For me, this is the most impactful article in the volume. It critically, even brutally, honestly evaluates the field.
- I quote: "Futurists have, on the whole, rather ineffectually put forward their proposals for innovation and change. Mostly, they have been heard neither by opinion leaders, the powerful, nor ordinary people at all. One must admit, therefore, that the field as a whole has thus far been unable to resolve key aspects of the [global problematique]."
- As a member of the younger generation of futurists, I want to remind myself of the provocation Chris Riedy and Richard Slaughter posed: "What are we doing to promote and publicize good work, to take on civilizational challenges?"
#BookNotes #bookreview #bookrecommendation #foresight#futuresstudies #knowledgebase
As it turns out, even Volume 1 has too much content to fit in one post; I'll post Part 2 of my notes tomorrow.
Sidenote: Even if you are too busy to read the entire book, I'd highly recommend that anyone working in the futures & foresight space read the 3-page introduction. It serves both as a great overview of the field and as a pointer to specific articles that might be most relevant to your work. The introduction to each volume alone is more than worth the price of the book.
Get the book at the Association of Professional Futurists - APF website: https://www.apf.org/product-page/description-the-knowledge-base-of-futures-studies-2020