The year was 2040 when the social sciences transformed into something really unrecognizable. The social science catalogue now includes courses like coding and decoding, myth and magic, food futures, reality engineering, micropolitics, macrohistory and macrofutures, decolonization, re-creativity and re-invention, foresight studies, big history and galaxies, robotics and space sciences, spirituality and social transformations, etc. This was the tip of the iceberg. The climate of uncertainty and the explosive success of digital technology not to mention some game-changing events like the Occupy Wall Street, the discovery of the Higgs-boson like particle, the emergence of culture as driver of new economic growth among others continue to influence our ways of knowing and re-perceiving the social sciences. Recently, many academics have speculated about the future of the social sciences. The shape of things to come will certainly come in a digitized content and more according to experts. This paper explored some scenarios on the futures of the social sciences. It tracked emerging developments and explored the possible, plausible, and preferred social science scenarios in 2040. It employed the futures triangle and archetypal scenario (business as usual, best case, worst case, outliers) methods developed by Sohail Inayatullah and Peter Schwartz respectively.The purpose of this paper is to anticipate events and leverage the changes shaping the future of the social sciences.

1. Shermon Cruz
University Center for Research and Development
Northwestern University;
Center for Engaged Foresight
World Social Science Forum 2013
Palais De Congres
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

2. background, rationale, research question
research methods – futures triangle, scenario
archetypes, INSPECT method
key drivers / drivers of change / influencers
scenarios to the future of the social sciences
conclusion

4. knowledge divides:
homogenous / singular
Closed
digitization:
Commercial
Open
digitization:
Public
knowledge multiplies:
heterogenous / plural

6. What is the futures
of the social sciences
in the era of
digitization and social
transformations?
What are the
emerging trends, the
pulls, the pushes and
weights that might
limit or transform the
future of the social
sciences?

7. What are the
possible, plausible
and preferred
social science
scenarios in the
year 2040?
What might the
social science
discipline look like
in those years?
What lies over the
horizon?

9. Defining, vision, competing
images; leads us forward
Quantitative drivers of
change, the news
headlines, trends
Deep structures, barriers

10. Best possible
circumstances, transform
Game changers, wildcards
Current trends worsens
Status quo continues

11. scenarios are written narratives of alternative
environments designed to highlight the risks and
opportunities involved in specific strategic issues
(Ogilvy, Schwartz, 1998)
scenarios are written narratives of alternative
environments designed to highlight the risks and
opportunities involved in specific strategic
issues(Glenn, 2013).
Similar to writing a movie script (Schwartz, 1998).

12. Royal Dutch Shell
Rand Corporation
National Intelligence Council
World Economic Forum
Etc.

14. “The future is an asset, a resource, a narrative
waiting to be employed”
Sohail Inayatullah, 2013

15. Imagining/creating alternative futures could make
our present remarkable, significant

16. It used the proceedings of the 1999 and 2010
World Social Science Report and navigated the
World Wide Web for relevant and related print
and digital texts (journals, books, articles,
reports, essays, speeches, blogs) that explored
and/or imagined (logical, critical and creative)
the future of the social sciences.

17. scanned possible futures using the Google
search, Google scholar, books, manuscripts,
visions, and other scenario documents/report
(print and digital) to peer into what the future
could look like in 2040.
INSPECT (innovations, nature, society, political,
economic, cultural, technology) to scan and
identify trends, drivers and emerging issues

18. We narrowed our list and deliberated on its
importance and uncertainty
We identified the drivers based on our
assumption that they are the most significant
shapers to the future of the social sciences.
We organized them into constellations and
were used as building blocks to create our four
alternative social science future worlds.

19. not to ‘predict the future’ but rather to
anticipate events and leverage the changes
driving the field’s future
to offer an alternative view and participate in
the global conversation to create meaningful
debates and engage social scientists, academics
and practitioners to a broad range of futures
questions and conversations

20. to challenge our fundamental assumptions,
probe received wisdom, reframe our visions and
liberate our attitude towards the future of the
social sciences

21. There’s No Line on the Horizon: Push, Pushes and
Weights of Social Science Futures

23. setting the scene:
enter the world of 2040

25. University futures
Sustainability
epistemic complexity
digitization
Perception of the
future
Emerging technology

26. rebuilding the mosaic
damaged social sciences
multiplex conception
gaming the social sciences

28. “Modernity is the key theme and condition of the
social sciences…this situation has now become
global; even those who may want to reject it or
modify this predicament cannot avoid seeing
themselves confronted with the modernist claim.
Given its European and American roots, there is
always the risk that this concern with modernity
will be cast in parochial terms.”
Peter Wagner, 1999

30. Social science course catalogue in 2040
Philosophy I, II and III
World History I, II and III
Civilizations I, II and III
Ethics I, II and III
Government and Politics I, II and III
Self, Culture and Society I, II and III
Social Science Inquiry I, II and III
Classics of Social, Political and Economic Thought I, II and III
Colonization and Western Civilizations
Introduction to World Civilizations I, II and III
Introductions to Linguistics I, II and III
The Complex Problem of World Hunger
Problems in the study of Gender, Sexuality
Anthropology of Museums

32. “So what’s to be done now that big trouble has
finally arrived on so many fronts? To be brutally
honest, we have no idea and even less advice.”
Richard Watson and Oliver Freeman, 2012

33. Unemployed social
scientists
Unequal degree of
internationalization
Budget cuts/ closure
Damaged
social
sciences
Knowledge/digital
divides
Lack of pluralism
and foresight
Donor driven/ brain
drain
Knowledge
fragmentation

34. 2040 Social Science Courses (Fragmented)
‘University’
‘Multiversity’
(singular, universal, individual oriented, homogenous,
(diverse, plural, people oriented, heterogenous
Eurocentric, positivist)
indigenization, decolonized)
Psychology
Folk Psychology / Cross-cultural psychology
Sociology
Arabic Sociology / African Sociology / Chinese Sociology /
Indian Sociology / Malay Sociology, etc.
Philosophy
Arabic Philosophy / Indian Philosophy / Chinese Philosophy /
Malay Philosophy / African Philosophy, etc.
Political Thought and Human Identity
Arabic Thought and Identity / Indian Thought and Identity /
Chinese Thought and Identity / Malay Thought and Identity /
African Thought and Identity, etc.
Universal Human rights
Culture/Context based human rights / Standpoint
Anthropology
Europology

36. “When I use a word,” Humpty
Dumpty said, in rather a scornful
tone, “it means just what I choose it
to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice,
“whether you can make words mean
so many different things.”

37. trans-disciplinary
open access
everywhere is
the center /
beyond the ivory
tower /pluralized
massive
increases and
demands
useful personal, policy,
movements
Great scopes

39. “Video games are one step before a whole other
virtual universe”
Vin Diesel

40. Post-disciplinary
Aging
Spirituality
Occupied
Gaming
Open access
Gamed/virtualized
Transmedia
Robotics / Space
Driven

41. Social Science Catalogue in a Gaming Scenario
Reality Engineering
Coding and Decoding
Home Economics
Iteration
Mapping
Myth and Magic
Micropolitics
Macrohistory
Futures Studies
Video Literacy
Play
Photography
Negotiation
Translation
Food
Robotics
Spirituality and Social Transformation
Big History and Galaxies
Decolonization

43. - We have created plausible four alternative
social science future environments - rebuilding
the mosaic, damaged, multiplex, gamed.
- Backcasting method and futures wheel analysis
must be applied to put more content and
provide specifics/actionable items – policies,
program of actions, outline to achieved a
preferred/ aspired future (a survey, an FI or
FGD is appropriate here)
- The present is a conduit to the four alternative
futures. Scenarios are dynamic, they are
pathways to alternative futures

44. To change the future, we have to change the core narrative (Inayatullah,
2013)
Serves as a mental model, images of an alternative future environments
Culture eats strategy for breakfast (Inayatullah, 2013) . We have to analyze
the future of the social sciences in multiple spaces / perspectives (scenarios
at the local, regional is even better – contextual, grounded, situated).
Not predictions but alternative narratives of social science futures
Re-perceive the social sciences

45. Maraming Salamat!
(Thank you!)