Predictable Surprises
Opportunities to better anticipate future disruptions
About
Most of the gravest disruptions in our food systems, such as the accelerating loss of global soil fertility, political upheavals, massive storms or floods, pandemics, economic bubbles, supply system failures, technological disasters, crop failures, or mass extinctions of species, were predicted by civil society actors far in advance. We refer to these events as “Predictable Surprises”, as they arise from foreseeable patterns and come with relatively predictable risks.
Predictable Surprises are sudden and extraordinarily disruptive events that seem to come out of nowhere with the potential to change the fundamental dynamics of societies, whether locally, regionally or globally. Such world-changing events seem to catch everyone by surprise, even though later analysis shows that civil society understood and foresaw their roots and patterns. Our perspective for examining these “predictable surprises” offers the opportunity to better anticipate and strategize for future disruptions.
Publications
Text
Introduction to Predictable Surprises
Text
Predictable Surprises: Looking Back
Text
Predictable Surprises: Looking Back
Videos
SESSION 3 (9 June 2023)
Lessons for future preparedness/Lecciones para recibir el futuro
SESSION 2 (19 May 2023)
Looking Ahead/Mirar al futuro
Ways to engage
The Predictable Surprises perspective offers a possible framework for movements to collaborate in developing response systems that can improve their ability to recognise, predict, and collectively prepare for predictable and potentially disruptive events. This process critically involves learning from disruptive events in the past, applying hindsight of the past to see what disruptive events may be on the horizon, and distilling these lessons to develop response systems to prepare for predictable surprises in the future. The following toolkit is an interactive tool for movements to reflect and seed common visions.
Discover our other works
Territorial Markets
Reclaiming resilient, local markets rooted in autonomy, diversity, and rights
