The Brazilian Government Defence sector has been applying Futures Thinking for more than thirteen years to develop the Defence Scenarios, among continuities and discontinuities concerning methods and responsible bodies for executing the activities.
The Defence Scenarios is currently one of the documents instrumentalising the second stage of the National Defence Strategic Planning System and plays a role of identifying and communicating Defence and Security issues that can impact the country in the medium and long term. The type of method employed is Scenarios planning, a Futures Studies field method concerning gathering and processing information in a way that is possible to design a narrative to anticipate futures contexts. The final product generated are histories from the futures, the co-called scenarios per se. Narratives for the future are like images we can take from different timelines in which the present might develop from here. How much we will be able to capture in terms of possibilities, inclusivity and diversity depends on how many cameras we will be able to bring together in our trip for the futures.
In this regard, participatory methods and tools in futures research are usually applied to gather different perspectives and expertises, to engage citizens and stakeholders in the futures thinking process, or both. The participation can be employed in different levels of engagement in a research process, going from the informing and the consulting until giving the participant the power to delimitate the final product.
This approach allows the researcher to access not only theoretical information and knowledge, but, mainly practical information and tacit knowledge, that one based on personal experience, not codified, publicised or expressed. Furthermore, the participatory approach makes possible for the research process to be an instrument to citizens or stakeholders engagement under a relevant thematic being addressed and improve the legitimacy and impact of the future-oriented outputs over the audience.
In the Brazilian Defence Scenarios elaboration, federal standards determine the possibility of inviting people from different backgrounds to collaborate with their expertise or professional knowledge in specific stages of the research. Besides this possibility has been present in Defence Scenarios standards for years, we can’t identify yet a permanent investment on implementing a systematic way of making participation one of the foundations of the process.
Challenges and opportunities for participation
Participatory research has main challenges regarding the selection of participants and the relationship between them and the research conductors. Concerning the Futures Studies field, we can highlight the following specific challenges: ensuring a heterogeneous group of participants; ensure diversity; provide an inclusive space for collaboration; choose the most attractive form of invitation; keep the participant engaged; inform the participant about the scope of the research; maintain contact with the participant and keep them interested after collaboration (networking maintenance).
In the context of the elaboration of Brazilian Defence Scenarios, some more challenges can be added, especially those relating to the fact that the methodological process and its tools, change with each new cycle of strategic planning, as well as the political and social context of the country.
The relationship between Defence and civil society is one of the State's strategic objectives for the sector, with special emphasis on the interaction with the Academia to spread Defence Studies outside the borders of the public sector.
Dealing with Defence in a context of dialogue about the future is an opportunity not only to expand mental maps about what Defence is, but also an opportunity to build a community of practice that is understood as a fundamental factor in the construction of decision-making processes for defence high level statal decisions.
Participation talks about the legitimacy of public power actions, but it also talks about empowering citizens, relationships with society, more informed decisions, and strategic communication.
Today, in the Future Studies literature, there is a lack of systematic approaches to guide the practitioners on addressing the specific challenges related to participation. Developing solutions in this sense can improve the participatory process and facilitate its implementation under organisations and institutions.
Systematising participation
I have been working on developing solutions to enhance and improve the participatory methods, tools and practices under the Government Defence sector in Brazil. I bring together different knowledge and instruments from the Design Thinking, the Public Policy and the Project Management, to develop new approaches for the realms of Futures Research. My main research focuses on developing a framework of participation for the Brazilian Defence Scenarios building process, addressing the challenges of participation in the perspective of the practitioner and the participant.
At King’s, my research is on how the Governments and organisations in Europe have been applying participatory methods and practices under their Futures Thinking activities and initiatives, focusing on Defence sector bodies and their stakeholders. I’ve been identified and analysed different perspectives employed to Futures Studies and participatory practices in the region and learned from the challenges and opportunities faced for them.