The last decades have seen a rapidly growing interest in foresight methodology. Methods have been developed in corporate and governmental communication exercises often labelled technology foresight. In reality, these foresights have often drifted into processes of social change, since technological change is hard to foresee beyond what is already in the pipe-line. Forecasting of social change, however, must be based on solid knowledge about the mechanisms of continuity and change. Virtually nothing can be said about the future without relating to the past; foresights and futures studies are about revealing the hidden pulse of history. Hence, the answer to forecasting the future is empirical research within the social sciences. Demographic change has been recognised as a key determinant for explaining social change. Population changes are fairly predictable and the age transition can explain a wide range of socio-economic changes. For rural futures, demographic change is a key issue, since age structure in rural areas is often uneven and also unstable due to migration patterns. A number of policy related questions as well as research challenges are raised as a consequence.
This article discusses the practice of crossdisciplinarity in the context of future-oriented sustainability studies. Much research into crossdisciplinarity has concentrated on programmatic and epistemological questions. In this study, we focus on research practice and efforts to realize transdisciplinary aims across a research programme. We use the Swedish Future Forests programme as a case study and explore its aims, forms of collaboration and level of conceptual integration. The study demonstrates that efficient integration requires organizational settings able to support the development of a common conceptual framework. To achieve this, the aims and forms of collaboration and the means of integration ought to be consistent. Far-reaching integration and short-term instrumental objectives may be difficult to combine because integration requires intellectual space, specific boundary settings and time. Short-term instrumental objectives may also hamper open and reflexive discussion of alternative pathways to sustainability and of how participating actors shape the research process. These insights may help researchers and participating actors to design research programmes that enable a realization of their transdisciplinary ambitions.
Denna rapport behandlar förutsättningar för regionala utvecklingseffekter av en väginvestering. Projektet är en inledande studie kring effekterna av vägen mellan Falun och Borlänge som öppnades för trafik 2005. Projektet är finansierat av Vägverket. Projektet avser att besvara två huvudsakliga frågeställningar: Vilka samhälleliga effekter får en ny väg mellan två städer som ligger inom samma lokala arbetsmarknad? Kan betydelsen för en region av en väginvestering påverkas genom medvetet arbete från regionens aktörer för att utnyttja dess potential? I vår studie går vi bortom själva tidsvinsten och fördjupar oss i hur utbytet mellan de två kommunerna ser ut och förändras. Vi vill också komma åt orsakerna till dessa förändringar. Det är intressant för oss hur aktörernas perspektiv och förväntningar omvandlas till beslut kring resande, byggande, kollektivtrafiksatsningar osv. Betydelsen av den nya vägen avgörs till stor del av hur regionens aktörer ser på den och agerar för att ta vara på dess potential. Studien kan ses som en förstudie. Avsikten har varit att studera utbytet mellan orterna innan vägens färdigställande och att kartlägga synen på regionens potential, vägens betydelse hos företrädare för näringslivsorganisationer, större arbetsgivare, politiker, m fl. Frågorna måste besvaras genom flera olika delstudier med skilda perspektiv. Vi har arbetat med intervjuer med beslutsfattare i den berörda regionen, vi har studerat pendlingsrörelser, analyserat kollektivtrafikens utveckling och vi har försökt att sätta in vägen i ett regionalpolitiskt utvecklingsperspektiv. Fokus i studien ligger på institutionella förhållanden och begrepp och processer i regional utveckling.
This article explores the changing construction of the future in Swedish forestry since 1850. The framework is based on three concepts: (1) knowability, addressing changing views of knowledge; (2) governability, addressing changing views of the ability to steer the future; and (3) temporality, referring to varying ways of relating to time. The results reveal that until the 1980s, trust in science-based forestry triggered other knowledge-based activities, such as education, surveys, and field trials. The future was seen as predictable and forecasts were expected to support increased forest production. In the 1970s, the environmental debate about the forest incorporated a pluralistic futures agenda. High-production forestry using intensive management methods was questioned. Futures studies shifted focus from predictions to scenarios, highlighting a less predictable future open to human agency. Paradoxically, with increased knowledge of forest ecology and forest markets with improved modeling techniques, the future horizon shifted to one of risks and uncertainties.
This study investigates the importance of local service provision for the survival of rural areas. EU Rural Development Policy includes support to village shops as a means to sustain population. Shop closing is assumed to negatively affect migration to and from the area served. We analyse quantitative data on all Swedish village shops and the migration patterns in their market areas before and after shop closure. No significant effect of shop closure on either in- or out-migration can be established, regardless of whether larger or smaller market areas are employed or whether migrants with more urban shopping habits (i.e. commuters and families with children) are excluded. Complementary interviews in three villages where the last shop has closed verify the results.
In Sweden the number of rural food shops has decreased for more than 50 years. Often the closing of a village shop is supposed to affect the migration patterns in the area it has been serving. However, according to this study, neither in- nor out-migration in the area affected by the closing is affected. The deficits of migration usual in those areas are established at least 10-12 years before the closing year. Thus, the typical closing takes place subsequent to a long term population decline. On the other hand, localities hosting a shop that survived during the study period 1990-2004 have a bigger total population and show tendencies towards decreasing deficit of migration at any potential closing year. These statistical results are supported by interviews carried out in three villages where the last shop has closed. They indicate that the shop has already lost its importance as supplier when it closes. By then the village shop is primarily used as complement to nearby towns or shopping centres. Each of the two studies accounted for here point at a relative un-importance of the village shop as a service point at the closing time. However, as it often offer the last public space in the village the village shop serves a key function as a meeting point for some households. When the shop has closed, the village holds private homes only. That is a situation increasing loneliness to some inhabitants.
Over a number of years, geographers from Högskolan Dalarna (HDa) have been working on a method to map, analyse and present elements in landscapes through fieldwork with handheld computers and using GIS-technology (Geographical Information Systems) in combination with interviews at household level. The last few years we have applied the method in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda) in a co-operation with VI Agroforestry Programme (VI AFP). This report aims at drawing together the experiences from this cooperation.
Forecasts for demographic change and long-term economic growth in the world indicate a probable critical growth in demand for biological resources such as food, bioenergy, and forest products over the next few decades. In Sweden, as in other western economies where the rural economy and the rural population have been declining since the Second World War, such an expected natural resource turn may have major implications for social and economic change in rural areas. In this paper we explore the research needs that follow from the perspective of a natural resource turn, which we define as a long-term economic upgrading of natural resources following on critical growth in demand. Based on the situation in Sweden, we elaborate on four themes, considered as central to understanding natural resource turn–related rural change from a future perspective: (a) the production and management of biological resources and landscapes; (b) demographic change; (c) the location of economic activity to rural areas; and (d) social transformations in rural communities. Finally, some policy implications of these changes are outlined.
In the 2000 Lisbon Agenda, the EU expressed its intention of making Europe become ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010’. With less than one year left until the deadline, it seems that these goals will be hard to meet, even more so with the current global crisis. Yet thinking has to go beyond immediate responses to the current crisis to discuss the kind of strategy that should be implemented in the medium to long term in order not to reproduce the failures of the recent past. In this respect, the ‘social investment’ paradigm that emerged in the mid-1990s may provide governments and the EU with some guidelines for the macro-economic and social policies that need to be implemented in order to promote sustainable economic growth and ensure the political and social sustainability of the European Social Model.This report assesses the diversity feasibility, but also the relevance of the social investment strategy in Europe. What policies have been implemented in different countries, with what success? What have been the key drivers of change or impeding factors in pursuing a social investment strategy? The report also questions whether the goals defined in 2000 are still relevant, and whether the social investment strategy can help face not only traditional European problems but also new issues created by the current crisis.
Traditional welfare states have gradually become more involved in competition politics. In order to sustain economic growth in a globalising economy these states get increasingly supply oriented and act to promote technological change, innovations and entrepreneurship. In Sweden, efforts to develop knowledge based niches have become key elements in an increasingly growth oriented regional/industrial policy. This paper will address the spatial implications of these changes. Two territorial approaches can be fruitfully identified. First, the growth policy is based on an economic geography in which the promotion of regional specialisation and industrial clusters are vital parts. Thus, focus is turning from the periphery towards the centre as aims and means are directed towards international competitiveness. Second, the decentralisation of regional policy and the orientation towards partnerships, networks and cross sector co-operations is driving towards a spatial fragmentation where time and space specific regions are created on a project basis. The contours of a development system of regions partly over-lapping each others can be identified.
The last decades have seen a rapidly growing interest in foresight methodology. Methods have been developed in corporate and governmental communication exercises often labelled technology foresight. In reality, these foresights have often drifted into processes of social change, since technological change is hard to foresee beyond what is already in the pipe-line. Forecasting of social change, however, must be based on solid knowledge about the mechanisms of continuity and change. Virtually nothing can be said about the future without relating to the past; foresights and futures studies are about revealing the hidden pulse of history. Hence, the answer to forecasting the future is empirical research within the social sciences. Demographic change has been recognised as a key determinant for explaining social change. Population changes are fairly predictable and the age transition can explain a wide range of socio-economic changes. For rural futures, demographic change is a key issue, since age structure in rural areas is often uneven and also instable due to migration patterns.