Participatory methods for creating feminist futures

Gender perspectives in futures studies are rare and often sidelined, but there is also a feminist quest for feminist descriptions of the future. In this paper we explore how feminist futures could be devised, by analysing three one-day workshops designed to elaborate on feminist futures. The aim of the paper is twofold: to explore the possibilities of creating feminist images of the future and to develop and test participatory workshop methods for this in various settings. In all, around 70 participants (staff at a national funding agency/feminist researchers and practitioners working with gender equality/students in a futures studies course) took part in the workshops. The participants were guided through a sequence of activities including brainstorming and visioning with the ultimate aim of creating images of feminist futures, fulfilling a pre-specified goal: a society free of structural inequalities based on sex. The participants listed factors in the present and trends that may prevent us from achieving the goal and how these factors could be described in a feminist future. We argue that futures studies methods need to be changed in order to incorporate a critical gender perspective. In the paper we examine the results of the workshop and elaborate on how feminist futures can be created.

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