About José M. Ramos

I am a writer, speaker, and teacher who works for our social and ecological commons. I practice participatory and narrative futures as a way to amplify social change. I bring unique perspectives to some of our most pressing challenges, unlocking insights and imagination.

My Story

Born in California of Mexican ancestry, I grew up in the very multicultural suburb of Whittier in the 1970s and 80s. At an early age I took an interest in world philosophies and did a B.A. in Comparative Literature at the University of California Irvine. In the 1990s I lived in Japan, Spain and Taiwan, which opened my awareness to our planetary existence. I also grew an interest in Futures Studies in the 1990s which led me to do an M.S. in Strategic Foresight at Swinburne University of Technology. I saw the strategic synergy between futures thinking and action research, and developed a number of approaches for linking foresight to action. My PhD used critical globalisation studies to explore the long term futures of the world system, in particular futures of social and ecological justice. After my PhD I taught at a number of universities, Victoria University and Swinburne University in Melbourne and National University of Singapore (NUS), where I developed approaches to anticipatory governance and cosmolocalism. From 2016 to the present I have developed approaches to futures that connect inner and outer dimensions, which I call Mutant Futures. In 2018 I was privileged to work with the Global Swarm and Nesta to develop a keystone document for Participatory Futures practice. That same year my family moved from Melbourne to country Victoria (Malmsbury), where we live, practicing Permaculture and supporting community resilience.