3 METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK
3.4 Approaches to Futures Research
Future thinking has always been a part of human history, even if the concept of future may have had many dimensions. The future is always uncertain and unpredictable. Rather than a future, the present holds keys to a number of futures. Future can never be accurately known, future is always about surprises, choices, and changes. Change can be extremely rapid, and changes interact and influence each other. A trend can express how the changes have happened in the past, but it can rarely be extrapolated into the unknown future. Characteristics of futures studies include such as participation, complexity, normativity, scientificity, dynamicity, and transdisciplinarity (Masini 1993, p. 17).
Incompleteness and uncertainty mean risk and challenge, further elements of futures-thinking.
Yet, because present behaviour partly influences the future, positive, optimistic images of futures can help overcome present problems and reach desirable future states in the long run.
The future of an individual, organization, or in this case, community and its poorest people, depends on its internal strengths and weaknesses. People are always at the core of any change or difference. The aim of futures research is to help the various stakeholders take the future and
in doing that, assist in understanding the alternatives and possibilities that lay ahead. Managing, planning, and in the process, creating the future, are the expected outcomes of the futures-thinking.
The purpose of the futures studies, is according to Bell (1997), "to discover or invent, examine and evaluate, and propose possible, probable and preferable future” (Bell, 1997, p. 73). The futures field is an integrative science of reasoning, choosing, and acting. It is looking to know what causes change, the dynamic processes underlying technological developments, as well as social, political, and cultural orders. In futures studies basic assumptions are holism, belief in the reality of present possibilities for the future, and of course, time itself. Bell brings up six topics that refer to existential phenomena that aid in delineating alternative descriptions and assessments of the future, and that can be scientifically studied (Bell, 1997, pp. 174–175):
Present images of future and expectations for the future;
Beliefs about the most likely futures;
The goals, values, and attitudes, hopes and fears, the preferences used to evaluate alternative images of future;
Present intentions of people to act;
Obligations and commitments to others;
Knowledge of the past.
The futures research related results of this dissertation will consist of descriptions of the processes, drivers and barriers of change and development as well as of looking at the conditions, actions, and the related mechanisms needed in aiming at the ideal future. Within the broader management system, water systems can be further defined as a socio-technical and physical management systems, including organizations which consist of activities of individuals, groups, and physical systems to produce output to fulfil needs. Grigg (1996) further defines socio-technical system as a combination of a technical system (water resources system) with its socio-political environment (pp. 114–115). As socio-technical systems, water management systems have in their core values, beliefs, and interests of various stakeholders. Values and value judgments have a central role to play in futures-thinking. Choices, interpretations, understandings of what is desirable and what is undesirable, even the choice of what to study, are all based on values. Values are of a fundamental importance in futures studies and hence, cannot be ignored or taken as given nor for granted. Even if it is not always possible to be aware of everything and recognize all the values that are present, a futurist should be alert and sensitive to the issue (Bell, 1997). The core value for the author of this dissertation is described in the Human Rights Council resolution 24/L.31 that recognizes that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation. As such, ‘a do nothing’ approach was not an option but rather, all field work was searching for positive ways of doing better.
The past (historic forces) are derived from Article I. There are also drivers and barriers representing the long-term perspectives in the supporting case studies. As acknowledged by Kaivo-oja, Katko, and Seppälä (2004), both history research and futures research are interested
in the time-line phenomena. The authors suggest that futures research and history research could jointly form a decision-making framework, which seeks to integrate both historical and future perspectives into today’s decision-making processes. These authors take this into the context of decision-making on water services reform, suggesting that futures research is innovative in that it seeks to address the nearly universal failure of (institutions and) decision-makers to retain and use institutional and organizational memory, while at the same time providing for the evaluation of alternative long-term scenarios to achieve the targets set for the future. This dual perspective ensures that the diversities of the past and pluralities of the future are taken into account in decision-making (Kaivo-oja et al., 2004, p. 540).
In conclusion, the research design, process, and methods were constructed utilizing the scientific literature as reviewed in this chapter, reflecting the context against the articles and case studies produced at different times over several years. The main methodological framework builds in futures-thinking to make a synthesis for the outcome from the individual peer reviewed articles and case studies, searching for emergent new dimensions and connections. The article specific methodological issues are further discussed in the following chapter.