Chronotopes of foresight: Models of time‐space in probabilistic, possibilistic and constructivist futures

The concept of chronotope was introduced in the 1920s by the Russian neurophysiologist A.A. Ukhtomsky, and extensively used by Mikhail Bakhtin in his analysis of the development of literary forms. Chronotope structures the possibilities for meaningful action and different chronotopes thus generate different forms of agency and future. In this paper, three approaches to foresight are analyzed, showing how their different chronotopes lead to different ways of understanding the future. We differentiate between probabilistic, possibilistic and constructivist frameworks for foresight. Probabilistic approaches are shown to rely on recursive chronotopes that capture future as a repetition of the past. Possibilistic approaches, here exemplified by the “gold standard” Schwartz/GBN scenario method, are shown to rely on narrative chronotopes that can tell stories of emergent futures and the impact of innovation. Scenario methods, however, describe changes in the environment as forces and trends in a recursive chronotope. As a result, they have limited capacity to address qualitative novelty. In contrast to possibilistic and probabilistic approaches, a constructivist dialogical approach described in this paper explicitly aims at integrating qualitative novelty and radical innovation as important elements of foresight. Constructivist foresight does not aim for “knowing” the future; instead, it aims at creating the future. Knowing when to use these different forms of foresight is an important element in strategy and policy development.