Foresight as an interdisciplinary field: approaches and practices

Abstract

The current world is witnessing profound changes in social, technological, environmental, economic, political, and cultural orders. In this context, the decision-making process is highly vulnerable due to the high uncertainty of the studied system, and what is at stake in the decision is very high. This situation is called post-normal science by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz. These changes demonstrate that the medium and long term begins to matter, and foresight studies are an essential input for the design of public policies. This paper reflects on the definition of foresight as an interdisciplinary field. The text revolves around two central issues. On the one hand, foresight as a field of intersection between future studies, public policies, and strategic planning. On the other hand, foresight as knowledge production related to the futures of various fields of application and their unavoidable dialogue of knowledge and wisdom. It starts with foresight as a discipline of the social sciences in order to analyze complex systems that allow understanding the current situation, identifying trends and future uncertainties, constructing scenarios, and analyzing their strategic implications. The paper presents some basic notions about foresight as a social production of knowledge. Then, it presents the convergence of the various and different disciplines that feed the field of knowledge. Finally, it presents a practical case of application in socio-territorial tensions in order to analyze the interactions and interrelationships between foresight and interdisciplinarity. Among the main findings, the need to have situated conceptual approaches and management technologies for the conceptualization of foresight as an interdisciplinary field is highlighted.