Futures-thinking and identity: Why “Futures Studies” is not a field, discipline, or discourse: a response to Ziauddin Sardar's ‘the namesake’

The term we use to describe the study or research of the future or futures is indeed important, and “futures studies” is preferable, although there is considerable dispute as to who and what is involved. Even more important is the far deeper problem of defining the “we” and what “we” in fact do. Futures studies not only considers wickedly complex problems, but it is itself a wicked entity, with many puzzles and contradictions. To illustrate, a taxonomy of 12 types of futurists, first articulated in 1985, is revisited, with special emphasis on the relative handful of Synoptic Generalists, the larger category of Specialized Futurists, the still larger entity of Futurized Specialists, and the largest entity of Closet Futurists who think about futures–often in a leading-edge way–but do not identify at all with futures studies, or are seen as futurists. Most contributors to Futures and other futures journals, as well as listees in the 2000 Futurist Directory, appear to have a secondary “futurist” identity at best. The fuzzy entity of “futures studies” is thus quite unlike any field or discipline, because it is easily entered by specialists who identify with the entity weakly, while many of the most important futures-thinkers are outside the entity. Instead of denying this paradox, the reality should be acknowledged, and an alterative paradigm for “futures studies” should be seriously considered.