ABSTRACT
For Futures Studies (FS) to progress toward a fully fledged discipline its knowledge creation processes must be clear and comprehensible. They must be capable of being taught, learned, critiqued and modified. This chapter employs the four-quadrant model as a way of considering the knowledge-creation process in FS. It should be stressed that not everyone agrees with this use of the model, nor does it necessarily achieve a close ‘fit’ with later, more sophisticated, developments. Still, there is value in looking afresh at four contrasting futures methodologies from this view-point. Together with others, they are then recontextualized within this framework. This is more than an exercise. It reveals new relationships between different types of methods and suggests a broader meta-map than has been hitherto available. It is suggested that a rapprochement between FS and an emerging ‘integral agenda’ provides a useful approach to the civilizational challenge facing humankind. Some awkward questions, however, yet remain. They provide new evidence that avoiding Dystopian futures will be neither straightforward nor easily achieved.
