Content uploaded by Riel Miller
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Riel Miller on Mar 11, 2024
Content may be subject to copyright.
An interview with Riel Miller in Design Decode Page 1 of 5
Understanding the Future Through the
Discipline of Anticipation
Posted to Design Decode February 2024
Thank you to Michela Ventin, editor-in-chief of Design Decode
What is the discipline of anticipation?
The word ‘anticipation’ offers one way to overcome the paradoxes and
confusion that dessicate the meaning and use of the word ‘future’. We all
know that the future does not yet exist. If it did it wouldn’t be the future.
It would be the present. And yet, no one can deny that the future exists in
the present in the form of a powerful influence on both humans sensing –
our perceptions of the world around us – and sense-making – attributing
meaning to phenomena, expectations, and motivations.
How paradoxical, existing yet not-existing. How confusing – something so
pervasive and influential constantly shape shifting, taking on new forms
and implications. And yet, at a practical level we wield the imaginary with
aplomb. A baby calling for food, a pedestrian crossing the street, a
gambler playing a card, an investor making a bet, a suitor seeking
marriage, a reader buying a book, a student enrolled for a degree – we
‘use-the-future’ all the time. So, that’s the challenge – how to unpack,
deconstruct, and wield this amazing capacity to imagine with a greater
awareness of what it details and entails.
One way to begin such an inquiry, an exploration into the functioning of
conscious human imagining of the later-than-now, is to dissolve the
conventional and practical deployment of the term ‘future’ into a broader
word that by its difference and ambiguity invites voyages into a diversity
of meanings. Thus ‘anticipation’ and anticipatory systems and processes
(ASP) as a way to designate a field of study, action, and evolution. And
the attribution of the term ‘discipline’ to the study of ASP because there
are parameters and boundaries that designate what is within the field and
what is outside. Such limits, satisfying or not, evolving or not, are what
justify using the term ‘discipline’.
So, in a nutshell, the discipline of anticipation (DoA) is defined as the
study of the diversity of anticipatory systems and processes or the
conscious reasons and methods used by humans to generate imagined
futures. With the explicit premise that understanding imagined futures
cannot be done using just one ‘way-of-knowing’ (epistemological
diversity) because there is not just one kind of future (ontologicial
diversity). Hence, from the outset of efforts to comprehend what delving
into ASP might reveal the task is pluri-epistemic and multi-ontological or
open to discovering, inventing, playing with different reasons and
methods for imagining the not-past, not-present.
An interview with Riel Miller in Design Decode Page 2 of 5
Thus Futures Studies, as an academic designation, is defined – from a
DoA persective – as the study of ASP and as a source of enhancing the
capacity to ‘use-the-future’ or futures literacy (FL). The logic is simple – a
field of study, delminted by its disciplinary parameters makes a particular
phenomenon (or set of phenomena) more comprehensible and on that
basis nourishes the capacity to sense, make-sense, and engage with that
phenomenon. So FS as the DoA explores ASP enabling the cultivation of
FL. And, of course, like with any exploratory learning voyage, as we
accumulate evidence, test expectations, revise preconceptions, the body
of knowledge evolves and so too the capability.
What is Future Literacy?
Grasping the concept of futures literacy depends, in part, on taking into
account the general context, worldwide, that in my view, can best be
described by the absence or underdevelopment of the capacity to
understand the diversity of anticipatory systems and processes that shape
our imaginaries. The dearth of explicit and more in-depth comprehension
of ASP limits what can be experienced and studied. Think of it like this: if
no one had a smartphone it would difficult to study what the ubiquity of
smartphones might enable. What can be observed cannot include what
has not yet happened. Consequently only certain, already existing ASP,
not those enabled by widespread futures literacy, can be examined. Such
research is certainly multi-disciplinary, as the imagination has been
investigated by many fields, from psychology and neuroscience to
anthropology and forecasting. Nevertheless, it remains impossible to
examine what does not yet exist, such as the ASP that may be elaborated
and extended by populations that have cultivated and refined their
imagining of the future.
At a practical level this means that we are currently experiencing the
infancy of futures literacy as a generalized skill. It is worth noting that this
skill builds on an innate capability – which is the panoply of anticipatory
systems and processes that humans deploy every day and all the time.
From this perspective futures literacy is similar to many other skills
humans have developed and refined over time, through study, critique,
and accumulated knowledge. It is also like many skills that require
practice or experience and develop different meanings and manifestations
as time passes, contexts change, and perspectives shift. And, tracing the
similarities with other skills, futures literacy can be learned through a
variety of pedagogical avenues. Although, as already noted, the theory
and practice of the field as a discipline is just beginning to take shape,
even if there are many sources to draw on.
Indeed for a variety of reasons, including challenges to old systems and
hegemonies as well as events like the recent pandemic, on-going climate
change, and more, there is currently a greater willingness to pursue more
open-ended approaches to the nature and role of imagined futures. In this
context it is no wonder that futures literacy as a ‘skill for the moment’ is
catching on and is being embraced by a wide range of institutions and
individuals. Global futures literacy networks and incubators are springing
up, ranging from some 37 UNESCO Chairs in anticipation and futures
An interview with Riel Miller in Design Decode Page 3 of 5
studies to governments, companies, and communities that are attempting
to begin cultivating futures literacy in their own contexts. As the idea of
futures literacy speads, as it were – in the wild – it is taking a path that
cannot be traced in advance and comparisons with the past run the risk of
obscuring more than they reveal. That said, I often do compare futures
literacy to the more familiar reading and writing literacy, that was hardly
born full blown and whose consequences, such as ‘fake news’, would
make Gutenburg blush.
Still, the skills people need are not those designated by some prescient
extrapolation, rather it is the ‘times’ and conditions of life that confront us
with deficiencies in our capacity to sense and make-sense of the world
around us. So, if the peasent moving to the city turned out to be better
equipped if they could read, perhaps today’s net savvy itinerant learner,
thirsty for diversity and constantly in need of ways to detect and give
meaning to differences, will find futures literacy to be useful. And perhaps,
just like the initial phases of universal compulsory schooling, the
rationales and functionalities, including the modalities, practices, and
requisite resources, are emergent, confused, contradictory, and in many
cases not ‘first best’ solutions. Such is the walk of an experimentalist
universe that constantly sparks and extinguishes entangled phenomena,
expressions of difference and repetition in the present.
What does it mean to be “futures literate”?
I don’t know what being futures literate will entail in the future. I do have
an inkling of what it means to be futures literate right now. This is
because I have had the good fortune to experience what it is like for
people from many different walks-of-live and parts of the world to begin
to acquire greater futures literacy. In a nutshell, someone who is futures
literate today is better able to identify the sources and consequences of
imagining the later-than-now. As a result they are better able to
distinguish the old from the new, invent the unnamed, and gain
confidence in improvisation, spontaneity, and not-knowing in advance.
Being futures literate means being more comfortable with the only
certainty, uncertainty. Instead of yoking our imagination to the narrow
focus of calculating risks, reducing the world to the estimation of
probabilities based on the past, a futures literate person is able to
explicitly, thoughtfully use both ‘eyes of perception’.
One such ‘eye’ does seek and see probability, but the other detects and
explores meaning in emergence, the unknowable in advance, in
uncertainty and fleeting ephemerality. Liklihood and novelty are not the
same thing, so neither are the futures imagined for these different
purposes, using different methods. Each requires distinct, often
incompatible intentions and methods. And each generates different
learning or knowledge along the way. People will not stop making bets,
irrevocable choices made with a calculated expectation of reward. Nor will
people stop encountering the creativity and discontinuity of our complex
emergent universe. To be able to decipher the diversity of repetitions and
differences, a futures literate person takes into account their anticipatory
An interview with Riel Miller in Design Decode Page 4 of 5
assumptions – the propositions and variables they use to frame their
imagination.
What are some examples of how people become more futures
literate?
People become futures literate in many different ways, for instance
through efforts to understand their experiences of fast and slow time or
by examining the roots and implications of the images of the future that
spark fear or hope. In other words, daily life offers many opportunities to
gain a deeper and broader understanding of the diverse anticipatory
systems and processes humans use on a regular basis. But futures
literacy also goes beyond this kind of familiar, routine imagining. Like with
any skill a practitioner can hone their knowledge as well as discover new
aspects, goals and techniques, that are beyond the grasp of a novice or
remain invisible to someone who does not reflect on their experiences. So
it is not at all surprising that learning about futures literacy can be
organized, as with any skill, through processes that engage the learner in
voyages of discovery, practice, reflection, and consolidation.
I want to be clear here – there are many ways to study or conduct
research into the theories and practices of the ASP that underpin futures
literacy. There are also many different ways to learn about anticipation
and refine one’s understanding of what it means to be futures literate. I
like to compare futures literacy to the more familiar literacy that applies to
reading and writing. There was a time when relatively few people had
access to the ‘written word’, although most humans have been able to use
language for a long time. Back then as it started to seem evident that
everyone should learn to read and write, the reasons, methods, and
outcomes of such universalization were not self-evident. In the end it took
a fairly long time, many experiements with different approaches to offer
access to the ‘written word’ to whole populations, and it is still not a
forgone conclusion – as many people remain illiterate. Same goes for
acquiring an awareness and proficiency with the more in-depth workings
of anticipation. Right now not many people are accustomed to analysing
and exercising their ability to imagine the later-than-now. We have barely
started conducting the experiments needed to find effective and efficient
ways of universalizing enhanced futures literacy. Not to mention what
might happen if everyone becomes more futures literate.
What are futures literacy laboratories?
Futures literacy laboratories are an action-learning/action-research tool
for exposing peoples anticipatory systems and processes. For more than
three decades now I have been experimenting with a set of design
principles, rooted in three different fields – learning, collective intelligence
knowledge creation, and anticipatory systems and processes. These
experiments have provided evidence of the diversity of anticipatory
systems and processes; practical ways of initiating a learning voyage that
enhances people’s futures literacy; and the refinement of methods for
both studying and diffusing futures literacy. The book Transforming the
An interview with Riel Miller in Design Decode Page 5 of 5
Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century (Miller, 2018) and the recent
Playbook (Carleton and Miller, 2023) provide plenty of detail regarding the
nature and role of futures literacy labs.
What are the differences that distinguish the fields of
competitive intelligence, foresight, and forecasting?
The most direct answer is that efforts to enage in competitive
intelligence, foresight, and forecasting are all expressions of specific
sets of ASP. In other words, the overarcing field of inquiry is
Futures Studies, understood as the ‘discipline’ that explores and is
limited to ASP – the purposes and methods that give rise to
conscious human imaginings of the later-than-now. Within this
overarching field there are many different sets of ASP. CI, foresight,
and forecasting, along with divination, eschatological futures, etc.,
are all sub-catgories of the DoA. Distinguishing and categorizing
these sets of ASP is the purpose of the Futures Literacy Framework,
proposed in Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st
Century (Miller, 2018, and this LinkedIn article).
For further reading: academia.edu or researchgate