“Not Everything is Possible, but the Possibilities are Infinite": Grassroots Organizing and the Complexities of So-Called Hope

Abstract

This thesis explores grassroots activists’ and organizers’ perceptions and experiences of hope within their movement work. Through two arts-based, semi-structured focus groups, five participants shared their understandings of hope in relation to their organizing. Transcripts of the focus groups and the artwork created therein were analysed through three conceptual lenses: community care (largely pulled from Critical Disability Studies), futurities and temporalities (informed by a variety of critical approaches to time), and Jewish spiritual thought. The results emphasize the need for organizing groups to (1) utilize futurity-focused temporalities, (2) implement imaginative and playful environments, and (3) offer support including an ethic of care, as well as tangible resources and training opportunities. This study holds implications for organizers and activists striving to cultivate spaces where hope becomes possible, for macro-level community social workers, and for social movement researchers. Shifting the environments where social change happens to enable organizers to slow down and rest, play and dream together, care and be cared for, and teach and learn skills can support the experience of hope by demonstrating the possibility of a different way of relating to one another.