From Visioning to Crafting Futures? Surveying the Expanding Literature on Future Making

Preprint, 2025

This article examines the increased use of the concept of “future making” within futures studies and in related disciplines. Specifically, it reviews contributions in this journal and surveys the literature on future making that these contributions cite. In so doing, the article explores the cross-disciplinary roots and stakes of the concept. The key proposition of the text is that the recent popularity of future making signals a shift within futures studies: Metaphorics of design and craft are challenging the dominance of metaphorics of vision, and designerly methods are increasingly making their inroads in the field.