Backcasting as a tool to fostering a kaleidoscopic dialectic and a radical sociological imagination

This chapter explores the potential of backcasting as a participatory foresight method to foster collective learning and unlock transformative pathways toward social-ecological sustainability. Drawing on Boike Rehbein’s concept of kaleidoscopic dialectics and sociological theory of collective learning, we argue that dominant sustainability governance frameworks —centered on innovation and predictive forecasting— reinforce existing narrative orders and institutional path dependencies, thereby constraining imagination and systemic change. Backcasting, by contrast, begins with desirable futures and works backward to identify present actions, enabling inclusive deliberation across diverse epistemic, cultural, and political perspectives. We show how this approach can operationalize radical sociological imagination, challenge expert monopolies on rationality, and reduce inequalities in participation, knowledge production, and global governance. By integrating normative reflection with pluralistic scenario-building, backcasting creates conditions for discursive democracy and cultural cross-fertilization, offering a pragmatic tool to reconfigure socio-cognitive matrices and institutional arrangements in the face of civilizational crisis.