Global Migration Futures: A conceptual and methodological framework for research and analysis

Conclusion
A scenarios methodology can be a valuable tool, complementary to conventional scientific
methods, to explore the future of global migrations. It is a particularly useful methodology to
explore the underlying structural forces and the contextual uncertainties that make the future
difficult to predict. Through this methodology, it is also possible to compel participants in
the scenario-building activities to rethink their conscious or unconscious assumptions about
migration. Crucially, scenarios aim to explore the possible instead of just the probable and
use the uncertainties as a building block to inform us about possible future challenges. In
times of crisis or of rapid change, we are often too overwhelmed to be able to sit back and
rationally analyze the situation. For this reason, the scenario process helps us to analyse how
the future might be different from the present before there is a need to act. In the end, if we do
not think creatively about the possibilities for the future, it would be impossible to think
creatively about the responses to those possibilities.