A collaborative exercise in futures literacyRural areas are changing drastically. They are also diverse in history, landscape, and future outlooks. Hence, just as we acknowledge the plurality of rural areas, we acknowledge that there is not one future but multiple rural futures. Practicing one’s futures literacy means developing the capability to imagine multiple and diverse futu-res. In a workshop at last year’s Summer School on “Rural Futures,” we focused on this direction in a set of exercises. In small groups and using creative met-hods, we tried to reveal our pre-existing assumptions about the futures of rural areas, reframe narratives of the future, and rethink and question our practices and policies in the present. We started by drawing a discursive landscape of the present, picturing issues, narratives, and topics that rural areas face today and that invite criticism. Next, we moved on to formulating our prognoses for probable futures in 2032. The next step was to challenge the assumptions behind these prognoses and think about what could change if we modified some of the assumptions: which possible or emergent futures could we imagine? Finally, we came up with visions for good, flourishing, or desirable rural futures and discussed first steps that could lead us Why rural futures ? | IntroRural Futures – Intro
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