The future: field of freedom, power & will?

Prophesies, predictions, the strategic exploration of different possible versions of futures cannot foresee the future, but all these could help us build it. The future invite us to grasp it as something that could be made, something that could be built, looking less like something we could guess as it would be already determined. Since future it is not set and on the contrary it is something open (like a field of freedom) in several possible futures (futuribles), then could we perhaps attempt to see these futures and build one? And if the answer is yes, which are the principles upon we need to stand? Which is the method which can allow us to foresight? How is that different than projections or predictions and why is it important to have a strategic plan and to take policy measures (the future as a field of power and will)?

Participants:
Byron KOTZAMANIS: Demographer (Docteur ès Lettres et Sciences Humaines (Université Paris X, France).

Researcher, professor of demography, scientific coordinator of research programs, organizer of national and international conferences in Greece and abroad, author and editor of books concerning demographic developments in Greece and the Balkans and issues of population reproduction, immigration, and demographic policy. He has been the President of the International Association of Francophone Demographers (AIDELF) and the Demobalk International Association, and he was the Director of the Laboratory of Demographic and Social Analyses (EDKA) of the University of Thessaly, Director of the postgraduate study programs of the Department of Planning and Regional Development and of the Joint French-Greek Master Program “Population-Development-Foresight”. He was also an expert of the E.U. for the reorganization of the Statistical Services of the Balkan countries. His research interests concern demographic developments in Greece and the Balkans, the effects of the economic crisis on demographic components, demographic projections and demographic policies, the spatial dimensions of demographic components, as well as migration and refugee flows in Greece. Currently, he is the Scientific Coordinator of the H.F.R.I. funded research program “Demographic Projects in Research and Practice in Greece”.