Introduction: Hope over Time—Crisis, Immobility and Future-Making

Abstract

This introduction discusses the hope boom in anthropological studies, suggesting that it reflects two converging developments: a sense of increasing unpredictability and crisis, and a sense of lack of political and ideological direction in this situation. We further identify two overall trends in the anthropological literature gathered under the rubric of hope: an emphasis on hopefulness against all odds and one on specific formations of hope and temporal reasoning.

Freezing Seeds and Making Futures: Endangerment, Hope, Security, and Time in Agrobiodiversity Conservation Practices

“…In commenting on what they term the recent "hope boom" in anthropology, Kleist and Jansen (2016) suggest that the current, accelerating interest in the topic reflects an increasing global sense of crisis, insecurity, and uncertainty. Importantly, they note that hope arises from, and creates, specific dispositions toward the future; that specific formations of hope constitute discrete forms of temporal reasoning.…”

Assembling “Effective Archaeologies” toward Equitable Futures

“…Motivated by moral optimism, then, our key message for broader audiences in the West is “that we have seen alternative visions of humankind … and we know that [ours] may not be the most respectful of the planet … nor indeed the most accurate nor the most practical” (139; cf. Kleist and Jansen ).…”

“…Cobb 2014)? Archaeology is not alone in this concern, with the future a focus of burgeoning scholarly attention (Adam 2010;Appadurai 2013;Ferry 2016;Kleist and Jansen 2016). While some archaeologists make a case for how our work can contribute positively by creating "usable" pasts for sustainable futures (Lane 2011(Lane , 2015Logan et al 2019;Ogundiran 2019;cf.…”

Waste to energy:

“…Thinking renewal from these places can train our eyes on the way that past conditions occupy the future, setting limits on the plausible. As anthropologists increasingly take up the future as an object of analysis (Adams, Murphy, and Clarke ; Appadurai ; Bryant and Knight ; Feldman ; Guyer ; Jasanoff ; Kleist and Jansen ; Kyriakides ) and as an existential problem (Boyarin and Land ; Masco ; Oreskes and Conway ), we would do well to attune ourselves to the subjunctive's ambivalence—and, indeed, to the many future orientations that shape our politics. Moreover, attending to this multiplicity is a particularly urgent task at a time when the future might be said to be the object of environmental and political anthropology.…”

“…They do not seem affectively or politically “corroded,” as Loïc Wacquant () describes those confined to decrepit spaces. Nor do they square with a disciplinary tendency to describe hope as resolutely positive (Kleist and Jansen ; but see Miyazaki ). Instead, they signal one way that aspirations get directed.…”