Richard Slaughter

Dr Richard Slaughter
Richard Slaughter Richard Slaughter
Born	Richard Slaughter Late 1940 London, London
Occupation	Professor/author
Nationality	England
Education	Lancaster University, PhD. futures studies,1982
Subject	Futures studies, journalism, Integral perspective, social innovation
Literary movement	Futures studies
Notable works	Director at Foresight International Foundation professor at Foresight International published 20 books on futures studies
Spouse	Jill
Website
http://authors-unlimited.org/author/richard-slaughter

Richard Slaughter is a scholar and writer in the field of futures studies, applied foresight and social innovation. He is the co-director of Foresight International, and has guest edited a number of journals, including Futures , Foresight , and Future research quaterly and world studies journal.He work has centred on developing the theory and practice of futures in education; the transition from empirical to critical futures work; bringing Integral theory into futures, and working with others to stimulate effective responses to what he regards as a "global emergency" created, in part, by the confluence of peak oil and global warming.

Life and work

From 1969-1975, Slaughter took up residence in Bermuda with his wife Jill. There he began a study of natural sciences, assisted by David Wingate, the government conservation officer at the time, and in 1975 produced his first book Birds in Bermuda. He noted that even in this unique group of sub-tropical islands there was little concern for the future. It had become a teeming mid-ocean metropolis and US military base. Protests and preservation efforts appeared to have little effect. Stimulated and also saddened by these experiences, Slaughter moved back to England with his wife and began to pursue a bachelor's degree that incorporated some aspects of futures studies at the School of Independent Studies at Lancaster University. There he developed a work program for himself titled "Science, Technology, and the Human Future". After achieving a first class honours degree in 1978, Slaughter began his post-graduate work at Lancaster in the Department of Educational Research under the supervision of John Reynolds from 1978-1982.

He successfully completed his PhD thesis and oral exam, after which he worked towards refashioning parts of his thesis into a publishable form. He simultaneously read a variety of literature relating to the human condition, including the works of Lewis Mumford, Hannah Arendt, Aldous Huxley and Ken Wilber. Slaughter's work to promote future studies in educational settings began during his graduate work at Lancaster, where he taught an option for futures study and curriculum design within the Master's program. He began to get his work published in the journals Foundation and Futures . During this time he also developed a course for futures studies and penned a corresponding textbook, Futures Tools and Techniques.

After several years of travel, lectures, and publication, Slaughter was hired as a lecturer in futures and social education in the Institute of Education at the University of Melbourne. During that time Slaughter wrote the books Future Concepts and Powerful Ideas and The Foresight Principle. He also co-wrote Education for the 21st Century with Professor Hedley Beare. After his five-year contract came to an end, while still in Melbourne, he set up the Futures Study Centre and worked as an independent writer, editor and occasional consultant. During this period he edited a three-volume work of futures literature The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies (KBFS). This went through several book and CD-ROM editions, the last of which was published in 2005. In 1998 he was commissioned with Adolph Hanich by the Vice Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology to draft a feasibility study that led to the establishment of the Australian Foresight Institute in 1999. Slaughter was offered and accepted a professorial fellowship to lead the institute in that year. During 2001 to 2005 he also served as the President of the World Futures Studies Federation. In 2004, Slaughter left the AFI to set up Foresight International. Since then he has edited and written further books and journals, as well as many papers. He has produced new CD-ROM materials, developed new web-based resources and continued working in the field of futures studies around the world.

Evolution of a disciplinary perspective

From forecasting to integral futures

When Slaughter was researching his PhD (Critical Futures Study and Curriculum Renewal, Univ. of Lancaster, 1982) the dominant themes of the futures literature were focused on methods such as trend analysis and forecasting. Slaughter's work, however, asserted that human and social factors had been widely overlooked in empirically based approaches. This led to his proposals for "critical" modes of enquiry that incorporated these factors. At the same time, scenario building was coming into wide use. While Slaughter acknowledged the value of scenarios that allowed practitioners to better explore divergence in the forward view, he felt that something was missing. This emerged in two stages: first, through the development of critical futures studies that itself drew on critical traditions and sources of enquiry; second, through the Integral project that was emerging from the work of Ken Wilber over a couple of decades. Whereas Slaughter had brought social factors into futures methods, the Integral perspective introduced an extended account of human and social development based on the work of developmental psychologists. From such sources, Slaughter proposed to up-date and expand the range of futures methods by drawing on and applying them within a futures context; hence the name "Integral Futures". While this led to some early concerns within the futures community, one of the prizes awarded to Slaughter by the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) was for a special issue of the journal.

Strategic to social foresight

During his five years at the Australian Foresight Institute Slaughter had situated the notion of Strategic Foresight at the core of the Masters Program offered at Swinburne University. It was his view that "foresight refreshes strategy". This formulation later became standard throughout the world and remains in wide use today. Over time, however, Slaughter became dissatisfied with the term, coming to believe that it applied most adequately within organisations. At that point he began to think and write about extending the concept into that of Social Foresight, which he conceptualised as a society-wide awakening to the implications of major futures concerns (such as peak oil, global warming and the Sixth Extinction) that were already beginning to be acknowledged more widely. His 2004 book Futures Beyond Dystopia: Creating Social Foresight aimed to provide a rationale and foundation for this approachand was favourably reviewed in a number of publications.

"The global emergency" and descent futures

Since leaving academia in 2004 Slaughter continued to travel, write and research. During this time he grew to believe that humanity was steadily heading into what he considered to be a trap of its own making. He believed that although The Limits to Growth project had addressed many of the main issues – particularly those pertaining to the impossibility of endless growth within a finite system – but had been widely ignored. So he spent a couple of years gathering material and in 2010 published The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History. This set out his view of where humanity was headed, and received a "Most Important Futures Work" award from the APF. The book outlined what Slaughter regarded as "the problem", and also considered a variety of strategies for responding to what he saw as a growing global emergency. Two years later he followed this work with an anthology of some of his shorter work called To See With Fresh Eyes: Integral Futures and the Global Emergency. Both books have since been published as eBooks.

Within the futures / foresight field there has long been strong support for the view that people find up-beat, positive futures more compelling that darker and Dystopian ones. While acknowledging the validity of this view, Slaughter’s more recent work has suggested that an open and honest look at where the world is headed suggests very strongly that disastrous outcomes are becoming much more likely. He has further suggested that the process of coming to terms with such futures can also be highly motivating and spur people into action. Currently his view is that the ‘double whammy’ of peak oil and climate disruption are set to wreak large and uncontrollable changes upon humanity for which, despite all warnings and ‘signals of change’, humanity is ill-prepared to deal with. In this context he considers that social foresight needs to become a mainstream project focused on the growing likelihood of social collapse on a wide scale. His preferred strategy, however, is to move from a ‘collapse’ narrative to one of ‘descent’ within which many options for human choice and effective action are retained and enacted. To this end he has co-edited a double issue of the UK journal Foresight on the theme of ‘descent pathways.’

While the road ahead remains extremely challenging, Slaughter’s overall view is that the future still remains to be created. Disastrous, overshoot-and-collapse futures are, in his view, consequences of business-as-usual thinking. But there are many other options to explore. This is consistent with a view that Slaughter has held throughout his career. He has sought to challenge passive acceptance of the status quo and the fatalism it engenders by showing that ‘the future is a principle of present action.’

Awards and recognition

• 2006 – The 2005 CD-ROM version of The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies was voted one of the ‘most important futures works of 2008’ by the Association of Professional Futurists."
• 2009 – The special issue of Futures on Integral Futures was voted one of the ‘most important futures works of 2008’ by the Association of Professional Futurists.
• 2010 - Slaughter was voted one of the world’s "all-time best futurists" by the Foresight Network, Shaping Tomorrow<
• 2012 – The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History was voted as one of the "most important futures works of 2008" by the Association of Professional Futurists. The relevant award category was that of "published works that analyse a significant futures issue".

Australian Foresight Institute / Strategic Foresight Program

Founded in 1999 at the Swinburne University of Technology, the Australian Foresight Institute was designed as a specialized research and post-graduate teaching unit. The original aims of the institute were to provide a global resource centre for strategic foresight, create and deliver professional programs, carry out original research into the nature and uses of foresight, focus on the implementation of foresight in organizations, and work toward the emergence of social foresight in Australia.

A research program on Creating and Sustaining Social Foresight was funded and supported by the Pratt Foundation and produced a series of monographs.

The institute was disestablished in 2005, with the teaching program subsumed into Swinburne University of Technology's Faculty of Business and Enterprise, with the new name of The Strategic Foresight Program.

Books

• Birds in Bermuda. Bermuda Bookstores Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda: ix + 158pp (1975) With photographs by the author.
• Recovering the Future. Grad. School of Environ. Science, Monash University, Melbourne: iv + 189 pp (1988) ISBN 0-86746-667-7
• Studying the Future, Bicentennial Futures Education Project. Commission For the Future, Melbourne: xiv + 82 pp (1989) ISBN 0-642-14281-5
• Education for the 21st Century, Routledge, London: xii + 180 (1993). ISBN 0-415-11523-X paperback; 0-415-06832-0 hardback
• The Foresight Principle. Cultural Recovery in the 21st Century, Adamantine Press, London: xviii + 224 pp (1995) ISBN 0-275-95292-4 cloth; 0-275-95293-2 paperback
• Futures Tools and Techniques. Futures Study Centre, Melbourne: 194 pp (1995, 1998 revised 2000, 2002) ISBN 0-7316-2650-8
• Futures Concepts and Powerful Ideas, Futures Study Centre, Melbourne: viii + 225 pp (1996 revised 2000, 2002) ISBN 0-7325-0268-3
• New Thinking for a New Millennium, Routledge, London: xiv + 242pp (1996) ISBN 0-415-12943-5
• The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies, Vol. 1: Foundations; Vol 2: Organisations, Practices, Products; Vol. 3: Directions and Outlooks: Futures Study Centre, Melbourne (1996) ISBN 0-9586654-0-0 set; 0-9586654-1-9 vol 1; 0-9586654-2-7 vol 2; 0-9586654-3-5 vol 3
• World Yearbook of Education 1998: Futures Education, Kogan Page, London, UK (1998). ISBN 0-7494-2236-X
• Futures for the Third Millennium: Enabling the Forward View, Prospect, Sydney: x + 366 pp (1999) ISBN 1-86316-148-1 paperback
• Gone Today, Here Tomorrow: Millennium Previews, Prospect, Sydney, (2000) ISBN 1-86316-122-8
• Futures Beyond Dystopia: Creating Social Foresight, Routledge, London: xxviii + 306 pp (2004) ISBN 0-415-30269-2 hardback; 0-415-30270-6 paperback
• Foresight Monograph Series 1-10, published individually by the Australian Foresight Institute 2003- 2006. Re-issued as set in library binding, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University, Melbourne, (2008). 640 pp, ISBN 85590819-XRichard Slaughter, Foresight International, 2012
• Futures Thinking for Social Foresight, Tamkang University Press, Taipei, Taiwan, (2006). xiv + 195pp ISBN 986738541-1
• The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History, Foresight International, Brisbane, (2010). xii + 233 pp, ISBN 978-0-9757354-3-5
• To See With Fresh Eyes. Integral Futures and the Global Emergency, Foresight International, Brisbane, (2012). xxv + 238 pp, ISBN 978-0-975735473.

Papers

• Defending the future: Introductory overview of a special issue of On the Horizon on responses to The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History, On The Horizon, Vol 21, No 3, 2013, pp. 168-173:
• Welcome to the anthropocene, Futures, Vol 44, 2012, pp. 119-126.
• Responding to a planetary emergency, FuturesVol 44, 2012, pp. 273-276.
• Sense making, futures work and the global emergency, ForesightVol 14, No 5, 2012, pp. 418-431

External links

• Foresight International
• Jose Ramos, From Critique to Cultural Recovery AFI, 2003.