Abstract

abstract:

Recent years have witnessed an explosion of interest in hope in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology. Although expressions of hope on varying scales have been considered, this article focuses on recent scholarship addressing micro, often individual experiences of hoping. Such experiences of hope dovetail with a recent strand in utopian studies focusing on material and practice-based considerations and drawing utopian energies into everyday life. Working between these points of homology, this article considers the relationship between small-scale expressions of hope and utopian thinking. Literature addressing diverse subject matter is compared on the basis of its conceptualizations of hope. The outcome is twofold. First, common understandings of hope are identified in research addressing diverse topics. Second, Darren Webb’s typology of modes of hope and their relationship to utopian thinking is expanded upon, and ultimately, a dichotomous understanding of modes of hope as either utopian or anti-/non-utopian is challenged.

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