Guide for Participatory Futures

This guide is rooted in practice. It emerged from ARAMA: A Particle of the Future, a project developed by Øutra Economia (Another Economy), the Brazilian hub of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. ARAMA was conceived as a confluence between listening, ancestrality, and futurism, using collective imagination to explore what fair futures might look like when shaped by lived experience.

Between March and November 2025, ARAMA travelled across Brazil’s five regions, hosting 10 participatory workshops in 8 territories and engaging 131 participants. The process deliberately prioritised people historically excluded from economic and future-oriented debates, including Black, Indigenous and Quilombola peoples, LGBTQI+ peoples, residents of urban and rural peripheries, mothers, children, adolescents, and elders. Most workshops were locally rooted, while some had regional exchange built into their design.

Øutra Economia developed a methodology centred on dialogue, active dreaming, art, and deep listening as tools for connection and meaning-making. Participants created visual collages and shared spoken and written reflections expressing what a fair future means from their own perspectives. Together, these materials formed a collective portrait of what should, and should not, be part of a shared and just reality.