Marcus Bussey

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Marcus Bussey works in the School of Law and Society at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia where he researches and teaches cultural change and futures thinking. He is a cultural explorer and creative traditionalist who welcomes complexity and uncertainty as processes that inspire the imagination and the creative hacking necessary to chart alternative and inclusive futures for the planet.

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Dharma and Hacking Culture of Peace: Learning to Co-exist in a Time of Becoming

Co-Creation Labs: Fostering Innovative Ways of Communicating for Sustainability

International Journal of Humanities, 2023

The growing attention to wicked sustainability issues 5 has called for new approaches that go bey... more The growing attention to wicked sustainability issues 5 has called for new approaches that go beyond traditional practice of producing and transferring knowledge from science to society. Thus, there has been an increasing interest in 'co-creation labs' as novel spaces for experimentation, social learning, and cross-sectoral collaboration. This paper discusses the rationale of a co-creation lab as a communication platform for joint construction of meaning and co-creation of knowledge to enhance our capability to navigate wicked situations. Part 1 of the paper explores the communicative context and outlines our theoretical position. Part 2 turns to conceptualizing the Mistra EC Co-Creation Lab and discussing the different methods and tools used in this setting.

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‘Who Am I?’

Routledge eBooks, May 2, 2023

The neohumanist moment and our planetary futures

Práxis Educativa, 2023

Neohumanism and global processes are described in this paper through the lens of the course on Gl... more Neohumanism and global processes are described in this paper through the lens of the course on Global Citizenship taught by the author. The relationship between humanism is explored and the ongoing human project of becoming 'global citizens' is framed as one of expanded consciousness involving critical spirituality. Neohumanism is described as the product of intercultural dialogue. Just as Humanism has declared there is only one human family, Neohumanism declares there is only one planetary family. The current moment is one of crisis and opportunity. This is a Neohumanist moment that is at work ushering in one way of seeing the relational and spiritual possibilities of our planetary futures.

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Transitional Selves

Routledge eBooks, May 2, 2023

137 Microvita and Other Spaces: Deepening Research through Intuitional Practice

Another language will perhaps one day help us to say better what still remains to be said about [... more Another language will perhaps one day help us to say better what still remains to be said about [the] metonymic figures of the unconditional. (Derrida, 2005, p.148) The encounter between different levels of Reality and different levels of perception engenders different levels of representation. Images corresponding to a certain level of representation have a different quality than images associated with another level of representation, because each quality is associated with a certain level of Reality and a certain level of perception. (Nicolescu, 2002, p.99) The concept of microvita was first introduced to me in December 1987. I was visiting India and heard Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar discussing it with a large audience. Everyone seemed excited and bemused. What was it all about? This bemused look comes over people today when the concept comes up in conversation. Microvita acts as a category of 'otherness ' that seems to flag something important and yet it is so hard to pin do...

Microvita and Other Spaces: Deepening Research through Intuitional Practice

Journal of Futures Studies, September, 2011

... A comic but insightful expression of this insight comes from , Douglas Adams (1982). In the t... more ... A comic but insightful expression of this insight comes from , Douglas Adams (1982). In the third of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy he lands a space craft in the middle of Lords Cricket Ground during a match and no one sees it because it is 'cloaked'. ... Sarkar, Prabhat Ranjan. ...

Selves and Spaces: Hacking Culture in Postnormal Times

Postnormal times (Sardar, 2010) has provided a lens through which futures researchers may interpr... more Postnormal times (Sardar, 2010) has provided a lens through which futures researchers may interpret and understand change in the present and a language to describe the contemporary epistemological rupturing occurring across disciplines and canons. This is an acknowledgment that reductionist views of foresight and strategic planning have become increasingly insufficient in understanding and interpreting the world around us. What is required, according to Sardar, is an overhaul in the way futurists think and do things (Sardar, 2015). Traditional approaches to the future deal with the plurality of alternative futures by distinguishing between plausible, probable, possible, and preferable. Proponents of postnormal times argue that approaches to the future must now incorporate postnormal landscapes as a means to navigate our transitional epoch (Sardar & Sweeney, 2016). However, as an emerging theory in the futurist's toolkit, postnormal times theory requires acute academic interrogat...

Precarity and Beyond: A Reflection on the work of Richard Slaughter

Futures, 2021

Abstract This paper offers a personal reflection on the work of eminent futurist Richard Slaughte... more Abstract This paper offers a personal reflection on the work of eminent futurist Richard Slaughter. Key aspects of Slaughter’s work, his method and approach, his aspirations and his central theme of precarity and ‘What Next?’ are detailed. The author also provides two examples of the direct influence of Slaughter’s work on his own.

1874-947X/11 2011 Bentham Open Open Access

Abstract: This paper explores microvita theory and its relevance to information science. There ar... more Abstract: This paper explores microvita theory and its relevance to information science. There are two parts to this, the first is theoretical and outlines microvita theory as an epistemological product of the Tantric theory of consciousness and mind. The civilizational value of such a theory is contextualized via a consideration of Gilles Deleuze’s concept of tran-scendental empiricism. Links to information science are made particularly with regard to Bates ’ evolutionary reading of information and to Dervin’s sense making epistemological chronology. The second part of the paper explores microvita theory as an emergent possibility by profiling six developments in cultural practice. Each hint at the transformative possi-bilities before us when considering information from broader epistemological contexts than the given Western rational-field we generally accept as the context for research. It is suggested that microvita theory invites in a shamanic disposition or temper which is com...

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People and Their Personal Well-Being 31

Youth futures: comparative research and transformative visions /edited by Jennifer

Cosmopoesis: Navigating the Strangeness of Planetary Realizations

Social alternatives, 2017

The world is becoming strange to itself! This strangeness is the result of 1, the surprise of bec... more The world is becoming strange to itself! This strangeness is the result of 1, the surprise of becoming increasingly self-aware of our human embeddedness in the evolutionary unfolding of the Cosmos and 2, the terror that this new consciousness inspires in many today. Giri's reflections on roots and routes is an important step towards articulating the multiple and rhizomic nature of this strangeness. In the Hebrew story of Adam and Eve and their awakening, they are surprised to find themselves naked. That story points to a similar surprise and terror as Adam and Eve stepped out into a strange world of the 'natural'. To cope with this strangeness and surprise, human beings awoke to culture and so the Western story of the struggle between culture and nature was born.Separation is a key element in that narrative. Today, however, our surprise and terror is born of the growing awareness of relation. Separation lies at the heart of our old story. It is comfortable and reassuring...

The sustainability prism

Social alternatives, 2012

This special edition began with the working title 'Sustainable Development: Global Vision, Lo... more This special edition began with the working title 'Sustainable Development: Global Vision, Local Voices'. However, as it evolved and the articles came in, the focus on development fragmented and became much less about the category 'sustainable development' or even its 'global vision'. The focus turned instead on social and personal learning and the conversations around these open categories. As a result the category 'sustainability' became a prism through which to view how people and their institutions are addressing the emergent limits to our global/globalising civilisation. In this way 'sustainable development' became 'sustainable prism' while 'global vision and local voice' became much less definitive. To put it another way, the issue became much more tentative and shifted to explorations in the areas of sustainability and the languages that we use to describe our strivings in this area.The fifteen articles and one poem pres...

Neohumanism: Rethinking Education for Planetary Futures

The conditions of late modernity have resulted in a convergence in history, environmental violenc... more The conditions of late modernity have resulted in a convergence in history, environmental violence, economic injustice, political bankruptcy, resurgent religious fundamentalism, technological change and philosophical confusion. This moment places before us two possible routes into the future. The individual, every one of us, is faced with the choice between loss and alienation on the one hand (the future is an intensified and colonised extension of the present malaise) or a reclamation of self and spirit on the other (the future is an open and creative counter to present hubris). This convergence has created the conditions for the emergence of a neohumanist sensibility; we live at a moment in time that not just necessitates a deepening of human awareness but also validates it (2006, p.40).

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Dancing East and West: Charting Intercultural Possibilities in the Thought of Gilles Deleuze and Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar

Social Theory and Asian Dialogues, 2018

This chapter enacts a dialogue between the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) and the ... more This chapter enacts a dialogue between the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) and the Indian social theorist and guru Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (1922–1990). It is an attempt to test the creative possibilities generated through an intercivilisational dialogue. The dialogue seeks to explore the congruences and incompatibilities that such an encounter can reveal. This co-creative process gives us new insights into the world and leads to the emergence of new categories and concepts to help us negotiate it. Both Deleuze and Sarkar take their philosophical traditions and rethink them in the light of new global demands, acting as creative traditionalists who speak from the past to the future through the medium of Western and Indic philosophy respectively. At the heart of this work lies the recognition that “philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts” (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Continuum, 1994, p. 2).

Heritage Futures: Thow Kwang Dragon Kiln and Creative Traditionalism in Singapore

Marginalia and the ethnosphere

TEXT, 2018

There is no singular future out there waiting for us. The future is a contested and creative spac... more There is no singular future out there waiting for us. The future is a contested and creative space in which individuals, communities and even civilisations explore the creative possibilities available to them in their traditions, their imaginaries and their choices. This provocation outlines some key drivers in the area of climate change, marginalisation and vulnerability. It does not seek to offer a coherent ‘narrative’ but rather to challenge the reader to think about the current global conditions under the banner of the new term ‘anthropocene’ and consider where resilience is to be found in our complex and uncertain world.

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Applying Causal Layered Analysis in Order to Rethink Work/Play

This chapter explores possible futures for an Intercultural Work Integrated Learning (WIL) throug... more This chapter explores possible futures for an Intercultural Work Integrated Learning (WIL) through the application of scenario profiling and CLA. The immediate context is the course on Intercultural Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development at University West at Trollhattan which took placein 2009.

New frontiers in local government community engagement: Towards transformative place-based futures

Futures, 2021

Abstract In the face of uncertainty and rapid change, how governments at all scales remain valued... more Abstract In the face of uncertainty and rapid change, how governments at all scales remain valued by society will depend on their ability to connect meaningfully, respond to challenges collaboratively, and co-design approaches with the community. However, tensions exist between the legislative obligations of local government organisations and meeting the rapidly growing needs of diverse communities, while simultaneously navigating the complexities of rapid change. Despite the efforts of local governments to obtain broad and representative input through community engagement processes, communities feel they have limited influence on decision-making processes. Further, Australian trust indices show declining levels of trust between the community, government and large institutions. So how can better community engagement practice be cultivated, evidenced, and continue to evolve to respond in increasingly complex contexts? Presenting a case study in the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, this article explores how a local government organisation is developing an innovative model of excellence in community engagement in collaboration with a regional university. Grounded in a place-based approach to community engagement, the innovation of this emerging model couples futures studies approaches to co-design locally appropriate responses to navigate increasing uncertainty and change. Drawing on literature from community engagement, participatory governance, futures studies and university-community partnerships, this article outlines a research agenda that explores how communities can strengthen their social and economic potential through place-based and futures thinking approaches.

Futures: Tools and techniques

Futures, 1996

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Marcus Bussey

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