Radically hopeful visions: Futuring for institutional anti-racism work

Abstract

This paper describes how a reparative futures approach alters the orientations and methods of institutional DEI work and generates a different set of affective, joyful outcomes. New paths forward emerge when past injustice is examined to imagine better futures. This activity resulted in novel perspectives on what a holistic, inclusive, anti-racist campus community could look like someday. We introduced the creative, optimistic, and long-term perspective of futuring into a year-long reparative anti-racism project to advance institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at an arts college. Reparative DEI processes, centered in tenets of anti-racism, rarely engage creative imagination to look forward. In addition, futures tools are seldom designed for the critical consciousness of reparative processes, which must be rooted in re-examining and challenging established narratives. The work shared here demonstrates an opportunity to explore both perspectives. Our experience reveals that reparative futures approaches alter both the feel of the process of approaching DEI work and establish a different set of outcomes. We propose that the radically hopeful visions created through critically conscious reparative futures practices offer an additional way to engage with reparative processes, bringing in creativity and consideration of relational connections.