Rejecting the idea that the future can be seen as predetermined, foresight invites us to consider it as a terrain to be explored (by horizon scanning, forecasting etc.) and a terrain to be built upon (with policies, strategies etc.). Among other characteristics, the foresight approach is based fundamentally on incorporating a ‘long view’, considering the long-term future, of course, but also the long-term past. This is because, on the one hand, many determining variables have a high degree of inertia to them (those relating, for example, to ecosystems and demographic change) and, on the other, only long-term analysis enables us to eliminate what are known as ‘period effects’, so as to grasp the deep inner workings of the developments under study, the real system dynamics.
Now, as Jean Haëntjens shows in this article, many studies have been published in recent years that reinterpret history in terms of geographical, environmental and climatic changes… and provide us with new keys to analysing past developments. The highlighting of these new elements will almost certainly not leave foresight practitioners indifferent and might see their own analytical tools evolving. Here Jean Haëntjens presents these new readings of the history and dynamics of civilizations and their potential contributions to studies that explore the future.
The article is downloadable only in French. It is not available in English.
