Backcasting

Summary

Backcasting is a set of methodologies to envision realistic futures that present alternatives to the future that is currently predicted. This approach differs from envisioning future scenarios in that it does not focus on consequences of new technologies. It rather focuses on the steps that are needed to reach a future that is a best-case scenario and a feasible alternative to the currently predicted one.

First, students identify a case that presents a specific future inside a certain area of human entanglement with more-than-humans. Then students relate to the predicted future by creating ideas for an alternative future. Students start with envisioning the desired end-result and then they think backwards to find out what the steppingstones are to reach that future. The result is a pathway with illustrated gradual steps to reach the proposed alternative future situation. 

Motivation

Currently, most technology designs still target individual users. If this continues with business-as-usual where designers do not take the more-than-human actors into account and reflect critically upon what roles they play and what roles technology designs play in human entanglements with the more-than-human, future designs will continue to be human-centered. In this teaching activity, which relies on the backcasting approach, students will generate alternative futures where new technology designs address entanglements of humans and more-than-humans. It works as a strategy method to help decide on a desired future endpoint and then works backwards to determine what should be achieved gradually to reach the desired goal: as many stages as possible should be described to connect the future to the present.  

The backcasting (what should happen) approach differs from forecasting (what is likely to happen). Backcasting provides students with the possibility to work strategically, normatively, and value-based with what the future could and should be. The backcasting method originates from future studies, and it is often used in urban design. It operates from how the situation is in the present and it is concerned with desirable futures rather than the predicted ones. In other words: what do we need to do to change the current trajectory of a situation? 

Backcasting offers a strategic problem-solving approach. It involves linking goals that might lie more than a generation into the future. Considering long timespans like this is appropriate when considering more-than-human entities whose lifespans are much longer than human lives and, for example, the short-lived political decisions. Backcasting helps to orient students towards desired future situations and look back at the present from these perspectives. 

Beyond this imagined future journal Joseph (2023), students can consider concepts related to more-than-human perspectives in design – see the teaching activity “introduction to more-than-human perspectives in design”. For example, students can include Donna Haraway’s concept of nature-cultures. A concept that the teacher can explain. 

In addition to Joseph (2023), Bibri (2018) offers a review and synthesis of multiple backcasting methods in comparison with forecasting. Teachers can read this article to support students in their backcasting activities in the classroom. They can also create a PowerPoint presentation with background theory on backcasting from this article, in case they want to introduce students to backcasting and other future methods before this teaching activity. Bibri (2018) can also be provided as optional reading in advanced level courses. It is worth noticing that the article embraces the dominant narrative of the technological fix to environmental and many other problems. If this article is discussed with students in a reading seminar before this teaching activity, then this narrative can be critically discussed in relation to more-than-human stakeholders. 

Learning outcomes

After the teaching activity students should be able to:

• Describe a currently predicted future inside a specific case with a limited scope.    
• Imagine a future scenario or situation that is alternative to the currently predicted one that includes how humans might live in entanglements with more-than-humans through new technology designs.  
• Illustrate through visual images, drawings, and text in a timeline what the steppingstones are to reach the imagined alternative future as a best-case scenario.  
• Explain why and how the imagined future is a realistic best-case scenario, and why the path to get there is feasible.  

Teacher guidance

Preparation
The teacher selects one or two articles that are inspiring and thought-provoking from ‘the open journal of refuturing’ Joseph (2023). It is a fictional research journal published in the future (part of a PhD dissertation) that provides interesting examples of what it means to imagine how new technologies might address the issues we struggle with in our current climate crisis. Many of the technologies proposed address more-than-human perspectives and planetary wellbeing. 

Bring a large sheet of paper. Markers in different colors and post-it notes. Perhaps some yarn that can be taped onto the paper and make a timeline. Dots that indicate points in time / steppingstones in the shape of pins or cardboard pieces that can be attached to the big paper sheet with, for example, rubber glue. 

Step 1: Lecture, Group size: 40, Time: 15 min 
The teacher introduces the exercise to the students and briefly discusses the readings with the students in plenum. What were their impressions of the article(s) from the refuturing studies journal? 

Step 2: Group work: Select situation, Group size: 4-6, Time: 30 min 
Students work in groups to select a current situation. They need to find a concrete case of a current situation that involves more-than-human actor – perhaps even a local case. They need to scope it appropriately, so that they do not work with a problem situation that is too global, large, and complex. Students should discuss what the predicted future is for this case. 

Step 3: Group work: Define end goals, Group size: 4-6, Time: 3 min 
Then students continue with defining the objectives and end goals for a future situation that is alternative to the predicted one. Realistic scenarios are preferred, based on what the students know now about the case that they chose to work with, but they should include normative elements in the realistic scenarios. It might be OK, if they have ideas for multiple alternative scenarios. It is up to the teacher to allow if students can branch out or not. Students need to be realistic, and they should also state when in time this alternative future situation should be reached. If it will be in ten, fifty or a hundred years. One generation is approximately 30 years. 

Questions that can be asked are the following:

• What would you like to happen to overcome the problems we have today if a goal is to live in regenerative relationships with more-than-human entities in our ecological environments?  
• What is the probable (most likely to happen), what is the possible (what might happen), and what is the preferrable (what we would prefer to happen)? 
• What do you see as barriers to overcoming these problems? And what would it take to overcome them?  
• Consider future generations: how might the next generations be involved in creating the future?

 Step 4: Timeline, Group size: 4-6, Time: 80 min
Then students should roll out the paper sheet on a table and start marking out a timeline. On this timeline, they imagine what will be the steppingstones to reach the end goals formulated in activity 3, asking questions like:

• What are the steppingstones to get to where the problem is solved?    
• How might more-than-human goals play together with economic and social goals? 
• What are the macro-scale actions, and what are the accumulated smaller-scale actions that contribute to change?  
• What happens bottom-up and top-down?

For inspiration for more questions, please see table 3 and 4 in Bibri (2018).  

The steppingstones should be the most strategic steps towards a realistic and desired alternative future. Students should be encouraged to critically discuss whether technology should be involved altogether, or if there are other ways of reaching alternative future(s) without new technologies. This session can include breaks where members of student groups can visit the other groups and look at their backcasting timelines as they evolve. 

Step 5: Presentation and discussion, Group size: All, Time: 25 min
The student groups present their backcasting scenarios in plenum. Everyone walks between the tables where the backcasting scenarios are laid out and discusses the feasibility and potential of the different scenarios. For example, if it is hard to determine the very next steps after the present, then the vision of the future might be too lofty? Look for “magical jumps” where there are less logical connections between the steps. Are there things that need to be done simultaneously to achieve the next steps? 

Questions for assessment

• How many steps did you include in your backcasting scenario, and how realistic do you think that the journey is from the current situation to your future scenario?
• What kinds of changes do you suggest in terms of change of mindset, change of behaviors, or other kinds of changes?

Recommended readings

Joseph, Jomy (2023). Refuturing studies: rehumanizing futures through/by design. Doctoral thesis. Oslo: The Oslo School of Architecture and Design  
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3058961 

Bibri, Simon Elias (2018) Backcasting in futures studies: a synthesized scholarly and planning approach to strategic smart sustainable city development. European Journal of Futures Research 6. Article 13. 1–27.  https://doi.org/10.1186/s40309-018-0142-z

The articles below present theoretical perspectives behind some of the content presented in the refuturing journal. They address the challenges we face in the time of climate change, and shine light upon the role of design in it. It is up to the teacher if some of the considerations presented in the articles should be discussed with students in a reading seminar before the backcasting workshop. 

Edelholt, Håkan (2022). Trapped in complexity: worlds and the methods they make. In Relating systems thinking and design. 2022 Symposium University of Brighton, Brighton, UK, October 13-16, 2022.  

Edelholt, Håkan, and Joseph, Jomy (2022). Design disciplines in the age of Climate Change: systemic views on current and potential roles. In proceedings of Design Research and Society, June 25 – June 3, Bilbao, Spain, 1-13. 

Edelholt Håkan, Joseph Jomy, and Xia, Nan (2020) Walk the talk: towards an ecological futures framework for our designed cultures. Design culture(s) Cumulus, June 16-19, Rome, Italy 2020.