The term ‘futures thinking’ is also closely related to the term ‘futures studies’. Futures studies
are according to Professor Sohail Inayatullah the: “…systematic study of preferred, probable
and possible futures including the worldviews and myths that underlie each future”. Futures
studies has moved from historical assumptions that external forces are only influencing the
future – astrology and prophecy – to structure (historical patterns of change, of the rise and fall
of nations and systems, many ways of knowing) and agency (the study and creation of
preferred images of the future)’ 21
.
So when we talk about doing futures studies, what we are doing is engaging in a systematic
study of the future. However, a study of the future also means a study into the many ways we
have come to know the future and how such knowing has shaped our present and future
thinking. To know the future involves understanding the type of thinking that has shaped our
present. Thinking is a very individual and personalised experience, because it involves
communicating my own individual interpretations, and what becomes obvious very quickly in a
study of the future is that you and I most likely will have different interpretations and answers
about the same subject/object in the future. Consequently, a study of the future involves
brings multiple perspectives.