111 Anticipatory governance of sustainability transformations 4 Some participants preferred normative plurality over plausibility, even when they identified plausibility as the focal conception within the project. To these participants, normative plurality is more reflective of reality as scenarios depend on interpretation of the world and are therefore inherently socially constructed (see also Ramírez and Selin, 2014). However, as one participant noted, when projects combine qualitative and quantitative scenario building, plurality ‘gets morphed into consensus’ in models and can therefore not be maintained. As an interviewee noted, “Models are consensus. They are about probable futures, maybe about plausible futures, but not pluralistic. So, if I say, my model needs data, I implicitly say that pluralism needs to be morphed into something that’s no longer there. So, I do workshops, bring people together, start very broad but make one story, a plausible future in which I sweep pluralism under the carpet.” (Interview with one of the participants, 7 April 2020). Models integrate datasets that present data consent rather than plural viewpoints, and as such may represent diverse plausible trajectories but not a plurality of worldviews or worlds. For example, when quantifying narratives, a diversity of information about a wide range of futures with very different accounts and assumptions is translated into something quantifiable and plannable, such as impacts of demographic growth and migration on food availability. Another process of translation is spurred by the widespread use of the global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways developed by the IPCC community as a reference framework for scenario development. These scenarios are five narratives of “plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change” (Riahi et al., 2017, p. 153). Consolidating scenarios work with the SSPs is considered to increase the robustness of scenarios, but also means that SSP assumptions about global trends can clash with assumptions made by stakeholders at local or national levels. The plurality of futures is thus challenging to maintain throughout the various stages of the anticipatory process. Only two participants identified performative futures, seen through a critical lens (approach 4), as a conception of the future embedded in their project. Of these projects, one was understood to have combined probable, plausible and performative futures in order to reduce future uncertainties, and was described as thereby using an Approach 4 conception of the future to meet an Approach 1 ultimate end (SUPat). The second example (The Future of Food and Agriculture) combined plausible futures, and an understanding of futures as performative, by collectively sharing and scrutinizing values and interests as a step towards arriving at a desirable future based on shared values, thereby integrating elements of Approach 4 within Approach 2 (FAO, 2017, 2018).
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