Thinking about your own future care-full pathway
On this and the next page of this lesson we invite you to experiment with some simple visioning exercises in order to help you reflect upon your future care-full pathway.
As always, if you feel comfortable doing so we would love you to share your results (on our pin board lower down this page). You may also like to reach out to someone else from the course who has shared their vision, to see if they would like to reflect and discuss further with you (e.g. via private chat, zoom call or similar).
The first technique is Backcasting. Backcasting is described by Renilde Becque as a tool which, by ‘marrying together transformational change with viability and desirability’, offers a way to ‘create bridges towards desirable outcomes for the future’. Explained in detail here, the power of backcasting is the prompt it provides for individuals, or even whole community groups, to question their current trajectory and think critically about what types of steps (or bridges) they will need to take, and alongside what kinds of individual/ collective abilities and networks they may need to establish, in order to ensure that their desired future turns out to be the one that they achieve.
“It can enable stakeholders to introduce more imaginative new ideas – opening up the dialogue to a future we can create” (www.sustainablebrands.com)
Imagine for example an academic institution which is free from neo-liberal pressures, which adheres to the highest standards of equity and diversity in all aspects of its operations, which leads by example whilst also supporting and promoting action aimed at holding other major institutional players to account for their social and environmental action. What is needed, and by whom in order to reach this vision? What role can you and your peers play in bringing about the transformation, and what are the steps that you can take in order to achieve this?
Or alternatively, if you prefer to use this technique at an individual level, by way of another prompting example: imagine a future in which all of the students who graduate from your class go on to apply, honour and live by the principles of Feminist Care Ethics in their future endeavours. What steps can you take to ensure that what you teach them becomes personally meaningful and inspiring, such that stays with them in the longer term?
Below is a basic template which you may wish to download and annotate, or alternatively to copy in your own free hand drawing. As is indicated in the image, as well as identifying the series of future steps which you will need to take in order to achieve your desirable future, ensure to note down also any one (or more) actions which you can begin taking right from today.
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This exercise is inspired by various sources, including futures analysis methods, found in the 'Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Socio-Ecological Systems'.
