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A coalition of Australian scholars and sustainability advocates has called for an intellectual and cultural revolution in their homeland, for "radical systemic change ... a complete renewal of both civil society and our public institutions".
The Coalition seeks "a comprehensive re-assessment of the way we Australians relate with one another, with our unique biophysical heritage and the ecological communities we are all part of, and with other peoples beyond our shores, especially in the rest of Asia."
This demand for change is made in Re-imagining Australia's Futures, a special double issue of the British journal Futures published in March 2007, guest edited by Australian writer Merrill Findlay.
The special issue of Futures (v39:2-3, March/April 2007) celebrates the fifteenth-ish anniversary of Imagine The Future Inc, the publisher of Redreaming the plains. All contributing authors were either guest speakers at ITF's Ecoversity in the early 1990s, or have supported Imagine The Future Inc in other ways; and they have all made substantial contributions to the literatures of their chosen fields in the years since their ecoversity involvement.
AUTHORS AND CONTENTS
Pre-print versions of some of the Futures essays are available by clicking on the links below. Pdfs of the published essays are available by emailing redreaming[at]rmit.edu.au, or by accessing Futures journal.
Introductory essay by Merrill Findlay [pdf 111kb] : Redreaming Australia.
This special issue of Futures celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of Imagine The Future Inc, a very small but influential cultural development and applied futures organisation based in Melbourne, Australia. The authors were either speakers at ITF’s ecoversity in the early 1990s or have been supportive in other ways since then. In these essays we now call for radical systemic change, a complete redreaming of Australia.
The term Dreaming is richly polyvalent in its meanings, especially in Australia where it signifies the religious beliefs of indigenous peoples. But the term also evokes a range of ‘scientific’ and ‘non-scientific’ understandings of the biological phenomena all humans ‘have’ in our sleep. We have no access to these dreams-as-experiences, but once dreams are interpreted as stories, they have the narrative power to change the world.
The social and environmental pathologies we outline in these essays can be understood, from a narratological perspective, as enacted narratives. The challenges of transforming our ‘new’ stories, or redreamings, into biophysical reality cannot be underestimated, but this is our quest, as moral agents and as citizens. We offer these essays as our contribution to much-needed national conversations about the future of our homeland and its relationship with the rest of the world. more >>
Ian Anderson, An end to Aboriginal self-determination?;
Joseph A. Camilleri, Australia’s Unique Future: Reconciling Place, History and Culture;
Paul James, Reframing the Nation-State: Rethinking the Australian Dream from the Local to the Global;
Susan Kenny, Non-government organisations and the dialectics of state and civil society;
Tony Stevenson, Rethinking Oz: More than policy, the underlying mindset;
Jim Falk and Chris Ryan, Inventing a sustainable future: Australia and the challenge of eco-innovation;
Peter Kinrade, Toward a Sustainable Energy Future in Australia;
Jason Alexandra and Curtis Riddington, Redreaming the rural landscape;
Alan Pears, Imagining Australia’s energy services futures;
David Mercer, Linda Christesen and Michael Buxton, Squandering the future: climate change, policy failure and the water crisis in Australia;
Sam Lake and Nick Bond, Australian futures: aquatic ecosystems and human water usage;
Merrill Findlay, River stories: genealogies of a threatened inland river system.
More on this special issue on the ecoversity web site, and on the RMIT University site.
REDREAMING AUSTRALIA: THE SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS
In June 2005 Stephen McGrail organised a special event to preview the Redreaming Australia project at the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship theatrette, Swinburne University. This gig was hosted by the student and alumni community of the Australian Foresight Institute. Thanks Steve.
Download the leaflet (pdf 78kb)
Page created 11 April 2006 and last updated on 12 June 2007.
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