Co-Imagining Futures: Engaging Experts Across Disciplines

The Co-Imagining Futures research project is an experiment in critical participation and in integrating research and pedagogy. Launched in February of 2019, we have conducted two iterations to date. Inspired by the ways in which combining scenario analysis, design fiction, and ethical reasoning helped us to facilitate stimulating discussions with STEM students in our classes, we decided to explore how they might work as methods for engaging experts in anticipatory ethical reasoning. Initially conceived as an engagement with scientists and engineers, we quickly realized that delineating expertise this way not only reinforced the boundaries between STEM forms of expertise and expertise in other disciplines, but was unnecessarily limiting. We also wanted to include our students in these interactions. Initially, we imagined that this involvement was purely for their edification--an opportunity to participate in research and learn how to facilitate workshops with experts. However, after our first iteration, we recognized that the students were critical to the research itself, acting as necessary mediators between different forms of expertise. In this essay, we describe the methodology and provide some preliminary analysis.