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Exposing the attractors of evolving complex adaptive systems by utilising futures images: Milestones of the food sustainability journey

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  • Kuhmonen, Tuomas

Abstract

This study aims at exposing the potential of futures images in anticipating and informing transitions of complex adaptive systems toward sustainability. Our case concerns the food system. The inherent properties of complex adaptive systems make the exact trajectories of these systems unforeseeable. However, since the systems unfold into a common direction, we can say something about the qualities of the milestones toward which these systems navigate. Attractors configure the evolution of complex adaptive systems. Since attractors are the most stable and robust elements in these systems, they are more feasible targets for foresight than the several variants that they configure and effectuate. We have depicted attractors of sustainable local food systems by futures images: through working with an appropriate level of abstraction, by leaning on a multi-perspective approach and by breaking the linear relationship between the present and the future. In this context they were sustainability-oriented trading and delivery systems, food cultures, product development projects, food brands and transparent food systems. We also located hot spots of structural change and agency within the food system. These insights may inform transition management efforts, but they must be updated frequently, since sustainable development is a journey.

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  • Kuhmonen, Tuomas, 2017. "Exposing the attractors of evolving complex adaptive systems by utilising futures images: Milestones of the food sustainability journey," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 214-225.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:114:y:2017:i:c:p:214-225
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.08.015
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    3. Kuhmonen, Tuomas, 2018. "Systems view of future of wicked problems to be addressed by the Common Agricultural Policy," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 683-695.
    4. Hamid El Bilali, 2020. "Transition heuristic frameworks in research on agro-food sustainability transitions," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1693-1728, March.
    5. Katariina Koistinen & Satu Teerikangas, 2021. "The Debate If Agents Matter vs. the System Matters in Sustainability Transitions—A Review of the Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-32, March.
    6. Hamid El Bilali, 2019. "Research on agro-food sustainability transitions: where are food security and nutrition?," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(3), pages 559-577, June.
    7. Zhu, Lin & Cunningham, Scott W., 2022. "Unveiling the knowledge structure of technological forecasting and social change (1969–2020) through an NMF-based hierarchical topic model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

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