Call for Papers: WFSF XXV Conference Special Issue

The New, The Novel, and the Liminal in Futures Studies

Call for Papers: WFSF XXV Conference Special Issue

Background

The Journal of Futures Studies (JFS) will publish a special issue drawing on the 50th Anniversary World Futures Studies Federation Conference (WFSF)* held October 2023 in Paris. The conference explored a range of themes related to the liminality of Futures Studies:

• the futures of futures studies – pushing the boundaries of futures thinking,
• the futures of humanity – exploring the liminal spaces between sustainability, equity and planetary justice,
• the futures of becoming(s) – exploring the liminal spaces between consciousness and spirituality, and
• the futures of agency – exploring the liminal spaces between action and responsibility.

The Special Issue co-editors – Maree Conway and Steven Lichty – invite attendees at the WFSF XXV World Conference to reflect on their experiences around liminality and submit a paper to the Journal (submission details are below). People who did not attend the Conference are also very welcome and encouraged to submit papers for this Special Issue’s theme.

The Special Issue Theme

This special JFS issue has the theme: The New, The Novel, and the Liminal in Futures Studies. Liminal is used here in the sense of a transitional space between the present and our futures, the space in which our world finds itself today. That is, we recognise that the future can only be influenced in the present. The theme seeks to move beyond the practice of Futures Studies to explore what underpins practice and enables this liminal space.

As our world is in, or moving quickly towards, a liminal space as reflected in the WFSF Conference themes, we would like to explore in this issue how we might understand the liminal not in terms of approaches, methods or frameworks but in ways that have the potential to help us work through the transitional period we are now experiencing with new thinking and new futures images. We would like to explore the urgency to use today’s liminality to identify new ways and means of transitioning through the next phase of human development – that is, our futures.

We are on the boundary of the old and new, with the pull of our futures and the weight of the past clashing in our thinking, our beliefs, our language, and our actions. This sort of volatility is to be expected as the human race has experienced many transitional periods, and the current liminal space we are in is yet another such period. How do we understand this space? And how might we interpret/change/adapt it in positive ways?

Here are some prompts, which are posed as questions that might be seen to have yes or no answers, but which are intended to encourage you to think more widely about what our world needs in this liminal space we now occupy.

How do we think about futures in this space? 

• Do we continue thinking about futures without conscious foresight as the norm?
• Do we attempt to find new ways of understanding the past and the present to imagine new futures?
• Do we challenge the underpinning assumptions we might hold about images that inform our thinking about futures – both individual and collective? Do we make those assumptions explicit and open to be challenged so we can find the new in our thinking?

How do we respond in this space?

• Do we continue to defend the mainstream approaches in Futures Studies of the present, focused largely on scenario planning and its offshoots?
• Do we ensure we keep the field open and welcome new approaches and methods that may seem antithetical to, or challenge, our existing beliefs and traditions?
• Do we seek to challenge, and seek out new ways of understanding that which we believe to be true in Futures Studies?

Do we understand and accept responsibility for future generations in the present?

• Do we take future generations into account when thinking about action in the present?
• Do we have a moral responsibility to be a good ancestor individually and collectively, and if so, what does this entail?
• Do our future generations have rights today?

How do we maintain and develop our Futures Agency in this space?

• Do we nurture a sense of individual and collective hopefulness to enable us to imagine and enact positive futures that are socially based in a sustainable world?
• Do we surface and use our foresight capacities consciously to enable us to expand the boundaries of our imaginations and assumptions about futures beyond the constraints of the present?
• Do we understand that we can only influence our thinking and actions in the present or do we search for a single, right, predictable future?

The co-editors are looking for papers that address any of these questions in new and novel ways, rather than re-explaining what is present in the field today.

Important Dates

Submission Deadline:  31 March 2024

Online Publication: Online publication follows immediate acceptance of individual papers

Quarterly Issue Publication: to be scheduled.

Information about Manuscripts

Two types of manuscripts are accepted. Potential authors are encouraged to contact the Special Issue co-editors (emails below) to discuss alternative submission forms.

Essays – 2500-4000 words in length (including references). Essays are expected to provide new viewpoints and visions, expressed through strong and intelligent prose.

Articles – 4000-8000 words in length (including references). Articles are expected to make novel contributions to the futures studies field, build on the corpus of futures literature, be evidentially strong and develop clear themes and arguments. Articles are double-anonymous peer reviewed.

Authors will email to confirm the submission of your paper, when reviewer comments are available, and when the outcome of your submission is finalised. It is understood that a manuscript that is submitted to the JFS represents original material that has not been published elsewhere. It is also understood that submission of a manuscript to the journal is done with the knowledge and agreement of all authors of the paper.

Authors are responsible for informing the journal of any changes in the status of the submission.

Manuscript Preparation

Authors must follow these requirements, also available on the JFS site: https://jfsdigital.org/invitation-to-authors/

The Journal of Futures Studies encourages authors to use an accessible, clear, plain English style. Our aim is to make JFS a readable, lively source of the best of futures thinking and methodologies.

Manuscripts should be:

1. Text must be 1.5 spaced with a 12-point font on single pages. Please ensure the submission is de-identified of your details in the text and references.
2. The cover page should include the title of the manuscript, the name(s) and surname(s) of the authors and the author’s affiliations, e-mail, correspondence, word count and a suggested running head. A footnote on this page should contain acknowledgments and information on any grants associated with the submission. This page must be submitted separately to the main text. Remove all author identification from the main manuscript for the double- anonymous peer review process.
3. For articles only – the next page should contain an abstract of no more than 100 words and keywords of the article.
4. The following pages of text should be numbered consecutively.
5. A brief foreword and/or an epilogue is not required but may be included.

If using LLM or Chatbot support, see JFS’ policy https://jfsdigital.org/2016-2/vol-20-no-3-march-2016/information/duties-of-authors/

Publication Process

Details about the JFS publication process are available at:  https://jfsdigital.org/jfs-publication-process/. The DOI for the journal is 10.6531/JFS.

Manuscript Submission Deadline:  31 March 2024

Questions?

Contact either of the co-editors:

Maree Conway: email (mkconway@proton.me)

Steven Lichty: email (steven@realconsultinggroup.com)

*Note: The website of the WFSF Conference is: WFSF XXV World Conferencehttps://wfsf2023paris.org/(wfsf2023paris.org)