The term we use to describe the study or research of the future or futures is indeed important, and ‘‘futures studies’’ is preferable, although there is considerable dispute as to who and what is involved (Marien, 2009). Most of the educated people we know have never heard of Future Studies (FS). The same problem is being seen in many societies and countries. Let’s look at the matter from another perspective. We should not worry about it, as the Futures Studies is spending its childhood time. And it’s a good sign for us as we are studying one of the youngest fields of studies in the world.

I think a strong driving force relevant to popularization of FS is “culture”. According to Bell (2002), people “would also become socialized into the culture of futurists, absorbing, among other things, the commitments to search for solutions to humanity’s problems”. We need cultural engineering to socialize FS into the deepest layers of our societies. Yet, “efforts made to get into the skin of other cultures and to learn from their modes of living and their visions of the future are rare” (Kapoor, 2001).

References:

Bell, Wendell (2002). A community of futurists and the state of the futures field, Futures, 34, pp. 235–247.

Kapoor, Rakesh (2001). Future as fantasy, Futures, 33, pp. 161–170.

Marien, Michael (2009). Futures-thinking and identity, Futures, 42, pp. 190–194.