Reflections on anti-racist futuring for climate action
By Marianna Birmoser Ferreira-Aulu & Nicolas Balcom Raleigh,
Doctoral Students and Project Researchers at Finland Futures Research Centre — University of Turku
In the Finland Futures Research Centre, we work in making sense of futures. Our research and education contributes to building possibilities for more just and sustainable societies. Yet, anti-racism has not been in the core of our work. Why is anti-racism important in the field of Futures Studies and Foresight? And why should we raise this discussion now? This is a reflection of two researchers constructing their identity as anti-racist scholars, and an invitation to our (majority white) colleagues to reflect upon their work.
In our work as futures literacy experts, we argue that it is not only our actions in the present that shape the future, but also how we look at the future that shape our actions in the present. It goes both ways.
When we put on anti-racist lenses to look at the future and to the work we do as researchers and educators, we understand that ‘not being racist’ is not enough. It is not enough to call for greater inclusivity in imagining futures or to align ourselves with ideals such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. If we claim that our work helps open possibilities for sustainable futures and justice for future generations, it means we also have to start thinking and acting anti-racist.
Researchers must stop the harms caused by racism
The dangerous belief system of ‘white supremacy’, implicit and explicit, have created long-term consequences on inequality in the human society. In some areas of the world, these consequences are perceived more imperative than in others. The problem is present not only in far-away countries as the USA or Brazil (our own countries of origin). It is also here in our neighbourhood.[1] [2] Finland was recently identified as one of most racist countries in the European Union. Racism is very real here too.
Racism is a problem of white people. It was not black people who invented it. Black people should not need to clean the mess of injustice imposed on them by others. White people should do it by stopping the sources of racist harms. It is not enough to merely be a supporter of today’s black movement as manifested in Black Lives Matter (or not be against it). We should also act anti-racist in our everyday activities. We need to pay attention and watch for the sources, harms and effects of racism and act quickly to call out and address racism when we see it — at inter-personal, organizational, and societal levels. We must also be alert to our own selves and engage in the work of reckoning with how our own actions may be contributing to racist harm. This watchful and active stance means we need to include anti-racism in our daily work.
We can start small. In scenario thinking, for example, we futurists often talk about who the actors in our future scenarios are. But do we actively think about the role of privilege amongst these actors, do we pay extra attention on marginalised groups? When we design workshops and plan interviews for our research, we often make an “experts matrix” to make sure we have a wide variety of experts in the field of our research. It is a best practice to include not only field of expertise, but also age and gender to our experts matrix. How often do we pay attention whether we are inviting enough non-white experts? When participating in strategic meetings of our organization or teams, how often do we raise the issue of unearned privilege and ‘undiscussable’ inequalities it produces?
Anti-racism in research funding
We can go bigger. We know academic funding opportunities are unequal around the world. When applying for funding for small and large projects, we can make sure to include international partners from places that are not as privileged as ours are. When we notice calls that require that all members of the research group belong to a certain identity-based group, for example, we can question funders on that requirement. These actions can help with inclusion.
Exclusionary practices also must be stamped out. In our own experience as white researchers, exclusion can be found implicitly in funding and career opportunities, for example, by requiring ‘native language fluency’ instead of an EU language skill level, or by requiring ‘name dropping’ of known local researchers. Exclusion and inequality can also be quite explicit, by requiring a specific nationality as a basis for decisions. Any time such exclusions appear, their rationale should be questioned and if they have no basis, research funders ought to remove them.
When we read research that incites racism, we can question colleagues, open up a debate, warn funders. We can create access in our events, and make sure less-privileged scholars can participate in our conferences free-of-charge. We can advocate for a tuition-free university — as the tuition for foreigners model drives non-equity among our programs’ students.
We can go even bigger. We can identify research funders who have histories that included funding what we now know was a profoundly harmful racist pseudo-science such as eugenics and ask these organizations to address the harms they have caused by opening anti-racist research programs of sufficient scale and magnitude to match the scale of past harms caused. There are many research funders in North America and Europe that have such histories. We researchers can begin individual and collective campaigns to demand such well-funded anti-racist research programs.
A practical example from the FLxDeep
We would like to share a practical example of anti-racist actions we can take in our daily lives as researchers. We work together on a project called Futures Literacy across the Deep (FLxDeep), co-funded by its six international partners and EIT Climate KIC. We are part of the EIT Climate-KIC Long-termism Deep Demonstration as futures literacy experts, and the deep demonstration team’s ambition is to promote a long-termism mindset in the financial sector, policymaking, and wider society.
During this year’s work on the portfolio, the long-termism Deep Demo has five Areas of Action: AoA#1: Reset the rules of the game. AoA#2: Rethink notions of value to reform the financial systems. AoA#3: Empower individuals through information transparency, capability building & behavior change. AoA#4: Enable collective action & create new democratic spaces to create the ground swell pressure for change. AoA#5: Shift culture & narratives to promote long term mindsets. We worked with these Areas of Action for the first half of the year.
Things were moving along, we were doing our part to contribute to the portfolio building process, and then — Bam. George Floyd — another black man in America — was killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota — Nicolas’s home city. His unjust, extra-judicial death was covered in international news. Nicolas’s heart was broken, and his eyes opened to the imprint Eugenicists and other racists had made on his home city, which had laid the ground for this tragic moment.
Our team couldn’t help but take notice of the global outcry concerning Floyd’s death. So, the topic came up in one of the Long-termism design team meetings. Should we add a new Area of Action to address it? What should it be called? The response from the many designers was mixed. The group settled on an idea to not make a new Area of Action, but rather to work to integrate inclusivity and equality throughout the existing Areas of Action and their positions. However, once the issue was raised, it was too late. Due to a whole set of private reflections and engagements with the issues being raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, we (Nicolas and Marianna) had already put on our anti-racist lenses. We noticed that we missed something very, very important to the societal development of Long-term mindsets and unlocking of resources climate mitigation and adaptation.
Climate change is racist. The link between human-induced climate change, environmental degradation and racism is not always immediately evident. However, climate change is intrinsically connected to racism and racist systems of oppression. Fighting one is fighting both.
Climate Change is a global phenomenon that goes beyond geopolitical borders and affect different areas and peoples unequally. Its causes are rooted in the extraction of resources often at the expense of people who are deemed ‘non-white’. The ability of an individual to deal with effects of climate change is closely connected to that individual’s vulnerability. White supremacist systems of oppression cause black people to become marginalized, therefore, more vulnerable.
If the actions that we take today affects the kind of future everyone will live in later, what long-term ethical issues should we take into account to achieve intergenerational equity and just futures? How can we vary the approaches and reasons we imagine these futures so that we can perceive a wider range of these issues sooner?
When we brought this question up in a meeting with our teammates in the EIT Climate-KIC’s Long-termism Deep Demonstration, the workgroup immediately stopped to listen. We realized we had missed something important, and that there was still time to change. We proposed ideas, shared knowledge, and humbly accepted that our mostly white workgroup needed to begin the work of taking an anti-racist view of climate change actions too.
Mobilizing Anti-Racist Climate Innovation
We took an action that was available to us, with a hope that it will one day mobilize anti-racist climate innovation. We co-wrote two positions for the portfolio of coordinated innovations linking innovating for anti-racism to innovating to address climate change. The first is named ‘overcoming systems of oppression to enable wider climate action’ and the second is named ‘equality in spatial planning’. The EIT Climate-KIC Long-termism Deep Demonstration is now seeking funders to activate its comprehensive portfolio of innovations, including these two positions. People who are interested to help activate these positions can contact longtermism@climate-kic.org to discuss possibilities.
What about you?
What have you been doing to be more anti-racist in your work? With this post, we invite our colleagues at the Finland Futures Research Centre and our wider readers to share their ideas and actions. Together we can develop ideas on how Futures Studies and sustainability innovation can contribute to more just societies.
End Notes
[1] European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2019) Being Black in the EU/Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey. 23 November 2018.
[2] See https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/helsinki-everyday-racism-a-problem-in-finland/. 12 June 2020.
The FLxDeep consortium (https://ty.fi/flxdeep) is co-funded by its six international partners and EIT Climate-KIC.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article belong to the authors only and not necessarily the Finland Futures Research Centre or the University of Turku as an organization, or to the EIT Climate-KIC.
