| Popis: |
The world is complex, and its developments are always uncertain. In this context, the bioeconomy represents a framework for innovating solutions which can enable a global transformation to a sustainable future. However, bioeconomy developments can also serve to repackage problematic or even unjust economic patterns from the past. This chapter proposes a heuristic of open futures and closed futures which can be used as lenses useful for ethically evaluating future imaginaries such as the bioeconomy. These lenses help actors imagine possible consequences of various developments on ecology or nature. Therefore, open and closed biofutures can serve as tools for engaging the ethicality of various development trajectories. These lenses also encourage actors to seek wider inclusion when considering who has agency and transformative agency in the bioeconomy conjecture. This chapter presents how this tool for thinking has been utilized in the Bioeconomy and Justice Project (BioEcoJust) to imagine long-range futures that represent particular complex challenges. As a research tool these lenses have enabled us to envisage a diverse range of futures and evaluate what is closing or opening about them. We conclude that the lenses of opened and closed biofutures can be used by innovators and decision-makers of all sectors for consideration of the ethicality of the work they choose to pursue today. |
