150 Chapter 5 Several implications emerge from our analysis. Fuller (2017) has pointed to the ways in which probability-focused anticipation, and to some extent, plausibility-focused anticipation as well, can be used to calm anxiety about the unknown rather than accepting the future as inherently uncertain. This is because scenarios do not reflect uncertainties in the sense of unknowns, but a variety of interrelated change processes based on knowable parameters that can be predicted or at least explored. Anticipation, when conducted in this mode, often informs a continuation of the status quo, rather than making a radical turn (Fuller, 2017). This can be quite problematic when those who finance and design anticipation (largely Global Northern actors) intend to create more inclusive and democratic processes but are closing down future possibilities for strategic and implicit rationales. As these implicit predetermined futures can de facto steer anticipatory governance (Gupta & Möller, 2018) in ways that hinder the transformative potential of anticipation (Avelino, 2017). We thus see a danger in the dominance of approach 1 in pushing for linear planning strategies of climate futures – by means of an expansion of a Global North-dominated foresight industry that closes futures down while pretending to open them up futures. Countries depend on the funds, expertise and consultants of western institutions. We see that this foresight industry has been very successful in guiding climate action across the globe. But it also reasserts their epistemic authority at the cost of national structures (Kothari, 2005) and can push back alternative options and worldviews (Dutta, 2020). It is important to be reflexive of these dynamics. Futures studies is rooted in western secular philosophies and produces Eurocentric designs of the future even those that explore non-Western alternative futures (Escobar, 2020). These visions can be incompatible with other ontologies, for example futures imaged by local residents often contrast with expert visions (Paprocki, 2019). Therefore, scholars have warned that these dominant ‘global’ futures can further marginalize non-Western futures and conquer and colonize new futures (Dutta, 2020; Sardar, 1993). Land grabbing is a prime example in which dystopian futures have forecasted future destruction and legitimized dispossession (Boamah, 2014; Paprocki, 2019). Particularly in post-colonial development contexts a lack of reflexive anticipation can create an imperative for disruption before it takes place (Paprocki, 2019). Some of the discussions in our cases pointed to this direction; future visions were excluded that did not fit development paradigms, and in another example was information from a futures project used to grab land from smallholders in Cambodia. The contexts in which our research was done were highly diverse in terms of their social, cultural, and political contexts, and much futures work has pointed to the need to represent such diverse societies (Appadurai, 2013; Escobar, 2020). However,
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