Why foresight matters.
Being ready for the future is more than just asking simple questions. It’s a disciplined way of organizing, imagining, and planning — and it’s at its best when done in a community.
The Social Work Futures Lab is an expanding alliance of social workers committed to disrupting “official futures,” exploring ethical challenges and working to open new possibilities for thinking & practicing across the profession.
RELATE
CREATE
NAVIGATE
COMPLICATE
We envision a world in which the common good is amplified — in which healing, repair and justice are universal commitments — in which interlocking systems of oppression are interrupted and transformed on a massively democratic scale — in which economic and political systems are driven by human and planetary well-being — and in which sustainable practices protect the future of our shared planet.
the Lab is you.
We invite all social workers — including students, practicing and retired colleagues, and social work scholars — who align with our principles, mission, vision & intentions to join with us in experimenting, learning, exploring, and using critical and participatory foresight to help move the field of social work forward in creative and purposeful ways.
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We intend to…
Cultivate a network of global social work practitioners, scholars and students in a non-hierarchical, generous and evolving collective of inquiry, practice and action towards more liberation-centered futures for all.
Advance futures thinking and foresight practice that is liberation-centered and endeavors to build a futures-oriented praxis among those interested in advancing more just-, healthy- and creative futures.
Explore and adapt futures thinking and foresight practice approaches to best meet the needs of the growing community and to use them in a spirit of play, joy, exploration and investment in the common good for all.
Engage with one another in ways that reflect deep respect and regard for other members of the Social Work Futures Lab community.
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We believe the future is an open space full of possibility that belongs to everyone.
We also believe that the future is political, plural and complex.
We align with critical and participatory foresight philosophy and methods and believe it is an ethical imperative to invest in constant power analysis and to consistently engage community voice in an active effort to be inclusive.
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We practice foresight because of a love and commitment to just and healthy futures for all. We seek to democratize, decolonize and universalize the tools of future building across the world – and to make special effort to engage those who are too often excluded from corridors of power where the future is too often set by a few rather than the many.
We practice foresight because the future is a place of unlimited potential and possibility. We believe that ethical and critical foresight practice invites spaces for the unsettling of official futures dictated from on high, and the creative potential of unlimited imagination, generosity and joy in creating transformative/transformational futures.
We believe that four interrelated aspects of our work comprise the foundation of our mission: relate, create, navigate and complicate.
Learn more about why RELATE CREATE NAVIGATE COMPLICATE is central to our work.