The limits of imagined futures in contested environments

Over the past 15 years, anticipatory theory has shown how imagined futures shape present choices and how reimagining the future can renew and widen them. This paper examines the boundary conditions of that claim. It distinguishes co-positioned situations, in which stakeholders' underlying values and interests are broadly aligned, from counter-positioned situations, marked by structural antagonism between underlying interests. Drawing on the information deficit fallacy from science communication, it argues that reimagination initiatives succeed in co-positioned settings but fail in counter-positioned ones because they misread a conflict of interests as a deficit of imagination and so leave its root cause untouched. This does not invalidate anticipatory theory; it bounds it. The argument is developed as a theoretical-conceptual analysis and illustrated by the South African transition to democracy (1970s–1994), where irreconcilable futures were resolved not through shared reimagination but through contestation, agency, and ultimately negotiated compromise at the level of opposed interests. The paper proposes futures agency—intentional action to advance a position within a counter-positioned field—as the productive response where reimagination cannot reach.