87 Approaches to anticipatory governance in West Africa 3 Particularly the focus on technological solutions for climate change have paralyzed societal mobilization in West Africa (Brockhaus et al., 2012) and marginalized issues of power and equity (Tschakert & Dietrich, 2010). 3.5.4. Reflections on the framework Applying the analytical framework on anticipatory governance has helped to identify implicit conceptions of the future and examine their implications for actions in the present. The anticipation processes were an important entry point for the analysis, as these are sites where the material (goods and people) and immaterial meet (ideas and visions of the future). Various excellent typologies exist on different types of anticipation processes (see e.g. van Notten et al., 2003; Loveridge & Street, 2005), combinations of processes (Henrichs, et al., 2010; Wiebe et al., 2018), or their role in decision-making (Turnpenny et al., 2015) to which the framework adds insights into implicit conceptions of the future as they are embedded in anticipation processes and their steering effects. As such, I saw the anticipation processes as spaces of connectivity through which past experiences connect to future imaginations and ideas materialize (Urry, 2016). Applying the framework to the West African context addressed an important empirical gap and provided new insights into the steering effects of future visions. It can be seen as a first step in opening up new research agendas on the political role of international organizations engaged in anticipation processes. Future research can look into the ways in which future visions reassert western authority (Kothari, 2005) or may colonize the future (Feola, 2019; Gram-Hanssen et al., 2022). Given the interdisciplinary research context in which anticipatory governance processes take place is the framework helpful for anticipation practitioners to become more aware of their political role and make more explicit what (hybrid) approaches to anticipatory governance are used and the implications for actions in the present.
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