Toward global environmental scenarios for (and by) the ‘bottom billion’?

Abstract

The current Global Environmental Scenario landscape lacks transformative socio-ecological world futures that provide pathways of liberation for the ‘bottom billion’. Drawing on decolonial thought, we develop a set of proposals for future scenario development. These proposals include participatory processes with subaltern population groups to facilitate scenario co-creation based on different ways of knowing the world; replacing fixed and ahistoric subjectivities driving global environmental and economic change with the agency of different social groups who might collectively be able to challenge the status quo of the world system; and creating visions and pathways that consistently address the colonial matrix of power by integrating decolonial environmental justice into scenario storylines. The outlined proposals pose significant challenges to conventional participatory and quantitative methods in the field of scenario research but also enable global environmental scenarios to better fulfill their potential of shaping social imaginaries towards emancipatory futures for all human beings.