About this ebook
The handbook aims to find a sweet spot somewhere between despair and naïve optimism, neither shying away from the massive socio-environmental planetary challenges currently facing humanity nor offering simplistic feel-good solutions. Instead, it offers ways forward—whether entirely new perspectives or Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge perspectives that have been marginalized within modernity—and shares potential transformative practices. The volume contains contributions from established and emerging scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners with diverse backgrounds and experiences: a mix of Indigenous, Black, Asian, and White/Caucasian contributors, including women, men, and trans people from around the world, in places such as Kenya, India, US, Canada, and Switzerland, among many others. Chapters explore critical concepts alongside personal and collective practices for creating desirable futures at the individual, community, organizational, and societal levels.
This scholarly and accessible book will be a valuable resource for researchers and students of leadership studies, social innovation, community and organizational development, policy studies, futures studies, cultural studies, sociology, and management studies. It will also appeal to educators, practitioners, professionals, and policymakers oriented toward activating creative potential for life-affirming futures for all.
About the author
Gabrielle Donnelly is a writer, educator, and scholar-practitioner. Her work focuses on bridging social change theories and practices to support leaders and communities to engage with the complex issues of the times and create more compelling futures. Gabrielle is an Associate Professor at Acadia University (Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia, Canada) and a Lead Strategist at The Outside, a global consultancy activating large-scale equitable change. She is a consulting editor of World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research.
Alfonso Montuori is an educator, musician, and consultant. He is a Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies and has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Fine Arts at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and in the Department of Psychology at the “Sapienza” University of Rome, and also taught at the Central South University in Hunan, China in the mid-80s. Alfonso is the author of several books and numerous articles on the future, creativity, complexity, leadership and education. He is co-editor of World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research
