Creative Permutation Foresight: Navigating Futures from the Global South

In a world grappling with unprecedented volatility and complex challenges, a innovative methodology dubbed “Creative Permutation Foresight” (CPF) is emerging from the Global South, offering a powerful new lens for envisioning and shaping future realities. This innovative approach moves beyond traditional predictive models, embracing the inherent uncertainty and layered complexities that define many developing contexts.

Unlike conventional foresight, which often relies on stable institutions and predictable data , elements frequently absent or fragmented in the Global South , CPF thrives on fluidity and contradiction. It acknowledges that uncertainty is not a temporary disruption but a structural condition, demanding a more adaptive and imaginative approach to future-building. CPF was not a planned invention, but rather a methodology born organically from the need to explore futures that resonate with emotional truth and cultural insight, rather than mere logical plausibility.

At its core, CPF is about “shuffling characters, cultural contexts, and contradictions” to reveal a multitude of emotionally possible futures. This makes it particularly pertinent for regions like the Indo-Pacific or Sub-Saharan Africa, where historical asymmetries and present instabilities collide. The Global South, rich in imagination but often lacking platforms for its strategic application, finds in CPF a vital intellectual space to define its own futures, free from imported frameworks.

This methodology champions human-grounded plurality, recognizing that realities are layered, hybrid, and historically uneven. While leveraging AI as a “co-pilot” for structured analysis and rapid permutation of scenarios, CPF firmly keeps human intuition, empathy, and cultural nuance at its center. This reframing of AI from a potential threat to a necessary partner is a critical aspect, especially as the Global South navigates the very disruptions AI itself accelerates.

CPF is not about rigid predictions, but about fostering “clarity in motion.” It is an ongoing evolution, an invitation to think from the margins, embrace speculative empathy, and restore the dignity of Global South imaginaries in shaping the future. By emphasizing a slower, deeper way of navigating complex landscapes, Creative Permutation Foresight aims not to out-predict the future, but to fundamentally reshape the questions we dare to ask about it, ensuring a more inclusive and resilient path forward for all.