Emerging Futures
A Voyage of Discovery
What comes next?
°Latitude’s Emerging Futures is our way of seeing how we can synergise big ideas with everyday practices so we can explore new patterns, perspectives, pathways, and possibilities together.
We are here to use our role as social impact designers to inspire and empower the young and marginalised to become active participants in creating the future and revitalising community life.
We use our shared social problems as opportunities to change course by experimenting, learning, and innovating together.
“This spontaneous emergence of order at critical points of instability, which is often referred to simply as emergence, is one of the hallmarks of life. It has been recognised as the dynamic origin of development, learning, and evolution. In other words, creativity - the generation of new forms - is a key property of all living systems.“
Fritjof Capra
Why Change?
It seems as though we’ve arrived at the proverbial fork in the road. Our social systems appear more fragile which suggests our current trajectory is unsustainable. Increased longevity, scientific progress, and technological power together with rising inequality, chronic disease, mental illness, governance failures, unemployment, and ecological collapse pose grand challenges. It doesn’t paint a great picture.
Our social problems are also complex, interconnected and are probably symptoms of a deeper underlying cause - a failure in perception, imagination, and choice-making capacities. °Latitude’s Emerging Futures works with individuals, communities, and organisations to build awareness and capabilities through exploration and by asking some challenging questions such as:
Where have we come from? What futures are possible? How do we get there? Who decides?
The Guiding Principles of Social Impact Design.
The principle intention of social design is to make a telling contribution towards creating a healthy, thriving and sustainable future for all people and the planet.
This highly desirable future is possible but today’s map (a top-down systems of control, standardised approaches, and the pursuit of infinite material growth) appears to be leading us in the wrong direction.
As we start to explore where we go next we can embrace the scientific process of emergence.
It’s where attractive forces give rise to relationships through patterns of connection. They generate synergies and a whole that is qualitatively different and greater than the sum of its parts. Solving complex social problems whilst also creating the conditions which prevent further ones to arise requires us to re-orientate our thinking and actions. It is these guiding principles which influence how we work on this journey.
FROM
Scale and Transactions
Narrow and Linear thinking
Short-termism and Reactive systems
Efficiency-led social systems
A one-size-fits-all approach
Division and Separation
Centralised interventions
Top-down hierarchies of control
Prediction, Assumption and Planning
TOWARDS
Deep and Meaningful Relationships
Holistic and Systems thinking
Long-termism and Adaptive mainstream systems
Resiliency-led social systems
An approach that values Diversity and Uniqueness
Interconnection and Interdependence
Decentralised interventions developing from grassroots
Distributive Networks of power and agency
Experimentation, Testing and Practice
