Rural futures in developed economies: The case of Finland

This study presents four possible images of rural futures in Finland: decentralized bio-economy, colonial countryside, museum countryside and rural business islets. They are distilled through literature reviews, futures workshops and futures tables. Alternative specifications of structures, contents and agencies result in highly divergent states of key dimensions and, consequently, divergent rural futures. This diversity challenges the conventional public wisdom or intellectual monoculture that considers decay as the only future for rural areas. Key challenges in crafting plausible but divergent futures images are finding an appropriate level of abstraction or “flight altitude”, establishing a credible logic or model for the system of futures, defining roles for the agency and applying a proper balance between imagination and discipline. This study provides one example for tackling these challenges. It can be utilized to stimulate ideas of using futures images as a social technology or tool for social learning about alternative rural futures. This intellectual perch is an antidote for intellectual monocultures tending to dismiss the diversity of the rural areas.