• UNESCO Open Learning Course on Anticipatory Governance, 31 Oct 2021 to 30 Aug 2022
• Rika Preiser, Associate Professor
Centre for Sustainability Transitions, Stellenbosch University, South AfricaUNESCO Chair in Complexity and Transformative Futures
My publications focus on how complexity thinking (as a form of relational knowing) can inform areas of sustainability, social-ecological resilience, inequalities and global change, ethics, the arts, and transformative futures research. All these areas are shaped by complex dynamics and a diversity of conflicting values and worldviews that unfold and respond in the face of fundamental uncertainty and change.
A remarkable resource for complexity thinking, transformative futures, anticipatory governance, critique as stricture. I met Rita as one of the happy discoveries at the Anticipations Conference. (might also want connect to the World Bank folks who Muindi and I bumped into at Anticipations.)
From her research statement:
FOCUS:
From a philosophical perspective, the acknowledgement of complexity requires that we engage critically and ethically with the assumptions of what we perceive to be real, intelligible, and relevant in the world. I am interested in exploring theories, concepts and methods that can help us understand the characteristics and behaviors of interconnected complex human-environment interactions and the ethical implications these pose to the challenges we currently face on our planet. I work in inter- and transdisciplinary intersections across academia and societal domains to synthesize and integrate complexity-based scholarship, inquiry and engaged research practice to foster multiple ways of knowing, learning and teaching.
My publications focus on how complexity thinking (as a form of relational knowing) can inform areas of sustainability, social-ecological resilience, inequalities and global change, ethics, the arts, and transformative futures research. All these areas are shaped by complex dynamics and a diversity of conflicting values and worldviews that unfold and respond in the face of fundamental uncertainty and change.
1 ) Complexity and Transformative Futures
In March 2022, I was awarded the UNESCO Chair in Complexity and Transformative Futures for the period 2022-2027. The aims of the UNESCO Chair are to establish capacity building in complexity literacy and social futures research, practice and outreach.
In March 2022, I was awarded the UNESCO Chair in Complexity and Transformative Futures for the period 2022-2027. The aims of the UNESCO Chair are to establish capacity building in complexity literacy and social futures research, practice and outreach.
The aim of this UNESCO Chair will be to apply the implications of a complex systems-based approach to understanding change processes, by drawing on current insights from the field of Anticipation and Futures literacy to inform transformative processes.
…
My research in this field of interest aims to develop conceptual and practical tools for addressing the misalignment between societal values (ethical, aesthetic, cultural, environmental) and economic value by convening transformative spaces where students, practitioners and decision makers can interrogate the assumptions that inform traditional ways of thinking and doing and to allow safe- enough spaces for reflecting on the limitations that outdated value systems and approaches have on re-imagining transformative processes. This includes developing and building on Futures Literacy as pioneered by UNESCO, and tapping into recent advances in understanding the notion of anticipation and other evolutionary theories of change.
2) Interacting across difference
Notions of ‘diversity’ or ‘difference’ have come to be a central feature in recent theorising in de- coloniality, social-environmental justice and equity.
Notions of ‘diversity’ or ‘difference’ have come to be a central feature in recent theorising in de- coloniality, social-environmental justice and equity.
…
foresight literacy is not the same as futures literacy
Thinking semantically (HI / human intelligence:),
planning,scenario rehearsals,futures thinking,strategic foresight,anticipation, standing in readinessall have very different implicit assumptions on who does this, on whose behalf, — in other words who has power to enact what, mixed with how know-that and know-how are distributed.
Systems thinking, complexity adaptive systems science, abductive heuristics are skill-sets orthogonal to the actor-structures above,I think.
Helga Wild et al have a professional (i.e. making a living outside academy) consultancy practice using mixtures of participatory design, deep ethnography for organizational learning that can be a resource for this offering…