As a futures researcher,
working in the Finland Futures Research Centre there has been numerous
calls to offer scenarios for the post-pandemic. The Finnish government’s
committee for the future
for example, have had intriguing research calls in which to identify
societal threats and opportunities and direction for this confusing
time. As someone who uses scenarios in my research work and as a teacher
of scenario thinking in the masters programme in futures studies (@UTU),
it is then perhaps strange that I find myself feeling highly
judgemental and cautious of the sudden grappling for scenarios. In fact,
the emergence of a pandemic was not the utter surprise or ‘black swan’
it is said to be, there have been plenty of warnings and historical
cases with intense discourse on this issue before, that somehow did not
gain the global and public attention it deserved. It was always
isolated, a hypothetical risk, something that happens someplace else.
So, the reality of this new situation that we collectively on-mass have
been experiencing does mark a new change in which society across the
board is affected. It was the first-hand experience where we felt the
full measure of the collective unknown and unexpected.