177 Conclusions 6 conceptual chapter (chapter 2) and apply it to various case study contexts (chapters 3, 4, and 5). It not only added to the internal validity of the research, but also created an iterative discovery of research findings for the thesis as a whole; the findings of each chapter (e.g., the hybrids of chapter 3) were used to reflect on the framework and open up new research directions (e.g., the implications of hybrids for realizing sustainability transformations in chapter 4). As such, the framework was some sort of ‘living tool’ that organically merged with the framework on transformation (Feola, 2015) and the notion of opening up and closing down (Stirling, 2008). The framework also served as a tool to guide the team of researchers in doing their research in Central America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia (see chapter 5) and has been of use to other research projects on plausibilitic, pluralistic and performative futures work (e.g., Spijkers et al., 2021; Stripple et al., 2021; Wibeck et al., 2022). The cross-regional comparative analysis analyzed reports, policies, interviews and focus groups qualitatively and interpretatively for each region to which one researcher took the lead and I coordinated the work. The analysis was conducted in close cooperation between all teammembers, who sometimes had different interpretations of the elements in the framework (e.g., of what the different conceptions of the future meant or which one an anticipation process embedded). We tried to make such conceptual plurality and diverse interpretations explicit in the many research meetings we had during the 4-year research period. This triangulation of sources (reports, interviews, etc.) of methods (document review, interviews, focus groups) and of researchers going through the material in different phases helped to obtain a very detailed and holistic overview (Verschuren & Doorewaard, 2010). Furthermore, we invited participants to the workshops and interviewees to give feedback on the theoretical approach and we exchanged our findings multiple times – this iterative and bottom up approach to the research creates a more advanced understanding in a co-creational process (Flyvbjerg, 2006), which I enjoyed immensely. The framework grew on us, as it were, and it was rewarding to see how the other researchers in the team and the participants in the research project started to think in terms of ‘the four approaches’ and apply it in their work as foresight practitioners. It was unfortunate that I could not involve all the participants in writing the paper as the social sciences are much stricter on the number of co-authors to invite onto a paper; in the natural sciences, it is considered much more appropriate to invite workshop participants as co-authors a difference to which quite a few participants to the research related to. 6.5. Looking ahead I concur with Urry (2016) who pointed out that the critical question for anticipation is to democratize the way the future is constructed and mobilized. This research has shown that it is time to pull futures studies out of the corporate and strategic world. Futures are too often made up of what can be numerically reasoned to tame anxiety about the unknown (Fuller, 2017) with an expert-based account of what can be calculated. With
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