13 Introduction 1 of Urry, ‘futures are now everywhere’ (2016, p. 1). With the expansion of anticipation processes, an explicit future-orientation in governance scholarship to examine the growing use of anticipation for climate action (Granjou et al., 2017; Pulver & VanDeveer, 2009; Vervoort & Gupta, 2018) is needed. 1.2. Problem statement: the future as an object of governance If futures are everywhere, it is increasingly important to analyze what futures are imagined and how these images steer actions in the present. Images of the future can call attention to future dangers and crises (Paprocki, 2019). Examples include ‘A Brave New World’ which warned of the impacts of technological progress on society (Huxley, 1932). Or Toffler’s 1970 book ‘Future Shock’ which argued that the accelerated rate of our changing society results in a crisis of adaptation (Toffler, 1970). ‘Limits to Growth’ (Meadows et al., 1972) drew attention to the limits of our planetary system. Contrarily, images of the future can also call attention to alternative (and more desired) futures, such as Thomas More’s Utopian society (1516), or modern Utopias believing in the salvation of science and technologies (Goode & Godhe, 2017). Grand narratives such as these affect how we think and act in the present (Groves, 2017). For example, Hartman (2014) noted that Malthusian theory shaped discourses on the impact of African population growth on environmental degradation and, consequently, paved the way for strategies to reduce fertility rates since the late 1960s. Therefore, scholars argue for understanding imagination as a social practice, by examining how future images shape social meaning (in the present) and create powerful imaginaries that are collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015). Recognizing this performativity requires scrutinizing anticipation processes, i.e., the methods and tools used to imagine and govern the future, as sites of politics where future threats and promises are being made sense of and negotiated in the present (Jansen & Gupta, 2009). Futures are thus an object of governance, i.e., steering collective action – images of the future steer governance choices in the present (Polak et al., 1973). Images of the future encompass the extent to which the future can be known and managed (Vervoort & Gupta, 2018). For example, the very act of developing scenarios such as the IPCC scenarios implies that exploring diverse future outcomes makes sense and allows for some form of management of the future in the present. In contrast, experiential futurists approach the future as something that can be experienced in the present for the opening up and creation of alternative futures (Candy & Potter, 2019). What do these insights mean for the way in which anticipatory governance processes are used to realize more sustainable futures in diverse contexts across the globe? There has been little science research of the many global, regional, and national anticipation processes that are used in sustainability governance scholarship (Burch et al., 2019). A
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