Multiple Futures and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Session 2.3 – Deepen
This section deepens multiple futures by examining diversity, equity, and inclusion—central to social sustainability and to imagining just futures.
Historical trajectories
Across centuries, social movements have asserted that structures creating inequality can be changed—and that more inclusive futures are possible. From antislavery movements to twenty-first-century work on intersectionality, the throughline is transformation.
Since the late 20th century, diversity, equity, and inclusion work has emphasized how overlapping identities—such as race, class, gender, and sexuality—shape people’s experiences. Activists and scholars have urged movements to address internal blind spots, broaden representation, and challenge assumptions (for example, about gender and heteronormativity, e.g. Butler 1991). These critiques build on a longer history of calling out exclusion and double standards, including a famous 1851 speech by Sojourner Truth, a Black abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, who highlighted the double discrimination Black women face.
Today, many institutions—including corporations and universities—commit to DEI policies that address structural discrimination by gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, and worldview. However, backlash persists: media and public debates show racism and anti-gender politics alongside DEI efforts.
Designing DEI-forward futures
When envisioning multiple futures with DEI as a starting point, ask what is needed for development paths that strengthen DEI values rather than undermining them. Can we imagine a world beyond current DEI frames—and what would it look like? For instance, could animals and nature be included in our DEI visions?
Pause and Reflect
* How do different futures impact different communities?
* Who is included in imagining futures?
* What role do power and privilege play?
* Can you imagine a preferable future that challenges current inequalities?
Explore further
Feminist Perspectives on Time, Futurity and Change, see Söderbäck, F. (2019) Revolutionary Time: On Time and Difference in Kristeva and Irigaray.