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As we design new products, services, business models and market segments, we often have the future in mind. This special issue explores future making, a set of practices for imagining and realizing a situation that does not yet exist. Future making engages with the people, places, and materials at hand to “make sense of possible and probable futures, and evaluate, negotiate and give form to preferred ones” (Whyte, Comi, & Mosca, 2022, p. 1). The aim of this special issue on future making is to explore how imagined futures are made possible in the present, as time unfolds from the present into the future.
Achieving this aim involves pushing the boundaries of knowledge beyond speculation and speculative design. The latter is a form of critical practice in design (Malpass, 2013), popularized by Dunne and Raby (2013) with their seminal book Speculative Everything. Speculative design has attracted considerable attention in design research, with scholars exploring its methods and practices (Auger, 2013), including the use of thought experiments (Barendregt & Vaage, 2021), spectacles and tropes (DiSalvo, 2012), fiction (Ahmadpour, Pedell, Mayasari, & Beh, 2019) and satire (Malpass, 2013). As a critical practice, speculative design encourages reflection on alternative ways of being, using design to construct witty or even whimsical narratives.
However, speculation about the future does not necessarily lead to its realization. While Dunne and Raby argue that “by speculating more, at all levels of society, and exploring alternative scenarios, reality will become more malleable and, although the future cannot be predicted, we can help set in place today factors that will increase the probability of more desirable futures happening” (Dunne & Raby, 2013, p. 6), we contend that speculation is not sufficient in itself, and might leave some open and unanswered questions. For instance, questions such as who is the “we” that would act as an agent of change—is it the designers, society or humanity as a whole—remain largely unanswered in speculative design (Tonkinwise, 2014). In this special issue, we therefore focus on future making.
Where speculative design aims to prompt reactions about alternative ways of being, future making is primarily concerned with the realization, consolidation and implementation of such futures – for instance by testing and validating their underlying assumptions, with the active involvement of affected stakeholders (Comi & Whyte, 2018; Shamiyeh, 2014). Future making sets out to create better futures, by leveraging reflective inquiry (Whyte et al., 2022), participatory practices (Luck, 2018), and design for the ‘real world’ (Papanek, 2005). In so doing, future making emphasizes not just imagination, but also craft work as well as bodily and sensorial engagement with the materials at hand (Comi & Whyte, 2018; Pettit, Balogun, & Bennett, 2023; Thompson & Byrne, 2021).
Future making differs also from rationalistic approaches to predicting the future (Wenzel, 2022). It acknowledges that the future (as objective time) is uncertain and undetermined (Esposito, 2024), and avoids attempts at predicting what such future will or might be. The emphasis is placed not so much on the future as objective time, but on the ‘lived experience’ (Ericson, 2014) of actors orienting themselves towards the future and crafting a course of action for the future. Although actors cannot determine the future (as objective time), their future-making practices are consequential in that they trigger a series of actions and decisions. Still, the actual outcome or ‘real future’ is beyond their control, being shaped by a multitude of factors that are unknown at the time of future making (Esposito, 2024).
Future making is a challenging endeavor. It is fraught with difficulties that arise, for instance, from conflicting interests between the actors at stake, and/or their lack of shared understanding of the imagined futures (Thompson & Byrne, 2021; Whyte et al., 2022). It also requires actors and their stakeholders to “develop an evolving and commonly shared consciousness” (Shamiyeh, 2016, p. 214), through active engagement in the construction and negotiation of imagined futures. Further complexity arises from fundamental questions surrounding future making: who should participate in crafting the futures at stake? What futures are preferable, and by whom? How to make futures that are desirable and sustainable for humankind, the environment, and the future generations? How can futures in the making tackle, rather than contribute to, systemic inequality?
Addressing these questions is important to ensure that future making does not end in utopian dreams (Ibach, 2023), dystopian realities, project failures (Sage, Dainty, & Brookes, 2014), escalating indecision (Denis, Dompierre, Langley, & Rouleau, 2011), or fantasy plans (Clarke, 1999). Hence, this special issue invites scholars to address questions about realizing imagined futures. Future making is interdisciplinary in nature. We welcome contributions from many disciplines and fields, such as design, organization and management (e.g. project-based organizing, knowledge and learning, strategy-as-practice), future studies, economics, innovation, anthropology, sociology, philosophy and history (see also Adam & Groves, 2007; Akama, Pink, Sumartojo, & Shepard, 2018; Ehn, Nilsson, & Topgaard, 2014; Esposito, 2024; Yelavich & Adams, 2014). We are open to empirical and theoretical works, as well as to project articles that outline how future making is practiced across a range of contexts and disciplinary areas (for a description of article types, see She Ji’s guide for authors, available at this link).
Manuscript submission information:
About She Ji
She Ji is a peer-reviewed, trans-disciplinary design journal that provides a unique forum to create new knowledge at the intersection of different fields. The journal focuses on design, economics, and innovation in today’s complex socio-technical environment, with a view to advancing design innovation in industries, businesses, non-profit organizations, and governments through economic and social value creation.
Open Access, No Fees
The journal is open access under a Creative Commons license. Authors retain the copyright to their articles. Because Tongji University subsidizes the publication, there are no article fees to authors or readers. Nevertheless, your experience in the Elsevier website can be confusing: the platform requests authors to agree to pay the publication fees, but Tongji University will make the actual payment.
Preparing and Submitting Your Manuscript
Interested authors should prepare their contributions based on She Ji’s guide for authors, including She Ji’s paper template and referencing principles. For further guidance on preparing your manuscripts please consult the guide for authors. When preparing your contribution, please note that She Ji has no limits on the number of illustrations you may use. Guest editors welcome figures, diagrams, and illustrations in full color or in black and white. Authors should submit their contribution via the She Ji’s submission platform.
Proposed Timeline (Tentative Deadlines)
Open Call 15 March 2024
Deadline for Manuscript Submissions 18 October 2024
Authors Notification 14 February 2025
Deadline for Revised Manuscript Submissions 16 May 2025
Authors Notification 18 July 2025
Deadline for Camera-Ready Manuscript Submissions 18 August 2025
Publication Date 18 November 2025
Additional Information and Queries
Alice Comi, alicecomi@tongji.edu.cn
Michael Shamiyeh, michael.shamiyeh@c-fd.eu
Luigi Mosca, l.mosca@imperial.ac.uk
References:
Adam, B., & Groves, C. (2007). Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics. Leiden: Brill.
Ahmadpour, N., Pedell, S., Mayasari, A., & Beh, J. (2019). Co-creating and Assessing Future Wellbeing Technology Using Design Fiction. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 5(3), 209-230. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2019.08.003
Akama, Y., Pink, S., Sumartojo, S., & Shepard, J. (2018). Uncertainty and Possibility: New Approaches to Future Making in Design Anthropology. London: Routledge.
Auger, J. (2013). Speculative design: crafting the speculation. Digital Creativity, 24(1), 11-35. doi:10.1080/14626268.2013.767276
Barendregt, L., & Vaage, N. S. (2021). Speculative Design as Thought Experiment. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 7(3), 374-402. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2021.06.001
Clarke, L. (1999). Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Comi, A., & Whyte, J. (2018). Future Making and Visual Artefacts: An Ethnographic Study of a Design Project. Organization Studies, 39(8), 1055-1083. doi:10.1177/0170840617717094
Denis, J.-L., Dompierre, G., Langley, A., & Rouleau, L. (2011). Escalating Indecision: Between Reification and Strategic Ambiguity. Organization Science, 22(1), 225–244. doi:10.1287/orsc.1090.0501
DiSalvo, C. (2012). Spectacles and Tropes: Speculative Design and Contemporary Food Cultures. The Fibreculture Journal, 109-122.
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ehn, P., Nilsson, E. M., & Topgaard, R. (2014). Making futures: marginal notes on innovation, design, and democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ericson, M. (2014). On the dynamics of fluidity and open-endedness of strategy process toward a strategy-as-practicing conceptualization. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 30(1), 1-15. doi:dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2013.05.003
Esposito, E. (2024). Can we use the open future? Preparedness and innovation in times of self-generated uncertainty. European Journal of Social Theory, 0(0), 13684310231224546. doi:10.1177/13684310231224546
Ibach, M. K. (2023). Printing Utopia: The Domain of the 3D Printer in the Making of Commons-Based Futures. Design and Culture, 15(3), 323-344. doi:10.1080/17547075.2022.2136562
Luck, R. (2018). Participatory design in architectural practice: Changing practices in future making in uncertain times. Design Studies, 59, 139-157. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2018.10.003
Malpass, M. (2013). Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative, Speculative, and Critical Design in Practice. Design and Culture, 5(3), 333-356. doi:10.2752/175470813X13705953612200
Papanek, V. (2005). Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago Publishers.
Pettit, K. L., Balogun, J., & Bennett, M. (2023). Transforming Visions into Actions: Strategic change as a future-making process. Organization Studies, 01708406231171889. doi:10.1177/01708406231171889
Sage, D., Dainty, A., & Brookes, N. (2014). A critical argument in favor of theoretical pluralism: Project failure and the many and varied limitations of project management. International Journal of Project Management, 32(4), 544-555.
Shamiyeh, M. (2014). Driving desired futures: Turning design thinking into real innovation. Basel: Birkhäuser.
Shamiyeh, M. (2016). Designing from the Future. In W. Brenner & F. Uebernickel (Eds.), Design Thinking for Innovation: Research and Practice (pp. 193-219). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Thompson, N. A., & Byrne, O. (2021). Imagining Futures: Theorizing the Practical Knowledge of Future-making. Organization Studies, 43(2), 247-268. doi:10.1177/01708406211053222
Tonkinwise, C. (2014). How We Intend to Future: Review of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Design Philosophy Papers, 12(2), 169-187. doi:10.2752/144871314X14159818597676
Wenzel, M. (2022). Taking the Future More Seriously: From Corporate Foresight to “Future-Making”. Academy of Management Perspectives, 36(2), 845-850. doi:10.5465/amp.2020.0126
Whyte, J., Comi, A., & Mosca, L. (2022). Making futures that matter: Future making, online working and organizing remotely. Organization Theory, 3(1), 26317877211069138. doi:10.1177/26317877211069138
Yelavich, S., & Adams, B. (2014). Design as Future-Making. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Keywords:
future making, speculative design, designing, futures, making, crafting, prototyping, visual artifacts, material artifacts
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