45 Four approaches to anticipatory governance 2 2.4.3. Approach 3: Pluralistic futures, societal mobilization and co-creating alternatives The third approach to anticipatory governance that we identify here is concerned with imagining diverse pluralistic futures, in order to mobilize societal actors in the present to co-create desired futures. It draws primarily on perspectives in futures studies and views on anticipation and anticipatory governance in the sustainability sciences. From these perspectives, the socially constructed nature of futures means that all notions of plausibility are subjective: different futures are more or less believable for different audiences. This approach is thus most concerned with collectively imagining radical futures with the aim of co-creating transformative futures. Conception of the future: This third approach is similar to the second approach inasmuch as it also sees the future as having multiple trajectories that are largely unknowable. It adopts, however, a more explicitly transformative stance. This approach reacts in particular to probability-based and plausibility-based concepts of the future that are seen as too limiting, since plausibility is still defined in terms of how futures relate to the present. Ramirez and Selin (2014) for example propose to open up the exploration of future worlds beyond the limiting ideas of plausibility that are tied to the present. Since all knowledge about the future is shaped by interaction and depends on interpretations of the world, different societal notions of the future represent fundamentally pluralistic future worlds (Patterson et al., 2017; Robinson & Herbert, 2004; Zehfuss, 2002). Vervoort et al. (2015) hence tie this fundamental plurality of futures to a plurality of societal presents and pasts. Actions in the present: Scholars in these traditions thus reject the duality between present and future, expressing a postmodern ontology that prioritizes interaction between multiple present and future worlds that can be co-created and mobilized through collective action. In this perspective, actions in the present call for prioritizing the imagining and development of pluralistic and actionable pathways to change that can bring together and mobilize societal actors in novel configurations (Swart et al., 2004). All assumptions for change processes can be investigated and all action trajectories can be tested to make them socially robust under various future conditions. Rossel (2010, p. 74) explains, furthermore, that, “robust does not mean ‘true’ nor ‘definitively ascertained’”, but “recognized, shaped, used and perceived as relevant by a variety of social constituencies”, as opposed to one expert or interest group. The collective imagination of new and more sustainable futures is seen as a first step to realizing and achieving alternative futures (Hajer & Pelzer, 2018; Hajer & Versteeg, 2019). One way to do so is to bring societal actors together to imagine new futures through new pathways for change, which can be acted upon in the present (Robinson et al., 2011). Anticipation
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