424 Enabling Policies and Institutions for Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems
succeeds). In this visionary role, science fiction has served for decades as a non-
academic form of communication in envisioning a wide array of alternate futures.
Although there is much to criticize in the genre – including occasional lapses into
forecasting – its continued vitality hints at the richness of future visions already
existing in society. It provides an excellent example of an existing cultural resource
that should be welcomed into policy debates on alternative futures.
Science fiction addresses themes relevant to debates on global futures, such as
technology, environment and sociopolitical alternatives. Within the world of pop-
ular culture, science fiction has involved large numbers of people in a decades-long
public dialogue (between authors and readers/fans) about the shape of possible
future societies. This public conversation has utilized the power of the story form –
a kind of power that the technical narrative of science lacks. By embracing fantasy,
these stories achieve an imaginative range lacking in policy debates: they coax a
suspension of disbelief, resulting in a creative expansion of the realm of the possi-
ble, and they demand emotional involvement. They are, therefore, able to access
the multiple dimensions of personal and social experience and to provide an empa-
thetic and holistic assessment of the possible future being envisioned.
Science fiction is, of course, only one of many potential contributors to an
enriched global futures debate, within the realm of story, in a Western popular-
culture context.
Conclusions
We have emphasized the social content of future visions and the processes of their
creation, calling for the ongoing creation of multiple visions by a broad and diverse
array of participants. We have argued in favour of multiple ways of knowing and
of diverse expressive forms. We have not, however, addressed the politics of vision
creation – how to ensure a diversity of views (diverse in both content and form)
and how to achieve wide participation – or the politics of turning vision into
action. These are, obviously, enormously problematic. To acknowledge the con-
straints on the creation of multiple, diverse visions (let alone their implementa-
tion) is, nevertheless, not to deny the validity of the visioning enterprise.
Currently, a newly globalized society is undergoing rapid political, economic
and cultural shifts. Far from diminishing the validity of, or need for, social visions,
chaotic times and conflicting values make them all the more necessary. By stimu-
lating continuous broad-based discourse on alternative futures, the process of cre-
ating social visions offers choice and the chance to democratize thinking. The
limited visions of alternative futures currently on the table need to be broadened
in content to include any and all aspects of human life that various groups of peo-
ple view as important. Employing multiple forms of expression or modes of dis-
course will bring not only richer visions but also wider participation and the
recognition that envisioning is a dynamic process. In this endeavour, no vision is