Hope for the future, we contend in this panel, remain central to the political imaginations of socially excluded people. However, the relationship between hope, social exclusion and citizenship are poorly understood. Much of the existing literature primes scholars to infer that social exclusion undermines citizenship, thereby spawning hopelessness, fear and mistrust. Indeed, the raging debate between triumphalist accounts of the global spread of ‘neoliberal’ market-based systems of economy and governance (Fukuyama, 1992; Friedman, 2008) against critical accounts of the same process (Harvey, 2007; Davis, 2006; Klein, 2008) have ignored the ways in which socially excluded people seek to ‘reinvent citizenship’ (Isin, 2012). Such neglect is commonplace. Even such icons as Mahatma Gandhi declared that the poor had no considerations other than that of the food they ate. Policy analysts point to the paucity of ‘aspirations’ among the socially excluded as a key factor for the perpetuation of poverty and inequality. In this vein, an influential organisation of global development such as the World Bank (2014:4) tells us that ‘policy makers can help combat poverty by improving the aspirations of the poor’, reiterating the assumption that poor people have no aspirations, hopes and imaginations of the future.

Paper 1

The politics of hope: Perspectives from London

Professor Simon Parker, University of York

In this paper, we challenge this widespread assumption by analytically and empirically investigating the ‘the politics of hope’ (Appadurai, 2013: 129) harboured by socially excluded people in London.

Paper 2

The politics of hope: Perspectives from Paris

Professor Carole Gayet-Viaud, Centre national de la recherche scientifique– Paris

In this paper, we challenge this widespread assumption by analytically and empirically investigating the ‘the politics of hope’ (Appadurai, 2013: 129) harboured by socially excluded people in Paris.

Paper 3

The politics of hope: Perspectives from Mumbai

Professor Suryakant Waghmore, Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai

In this paper, we challenge this widespread assumption by analytically and empirically investigating the ‘the politics of hope’ (Appadurai, 2013: 129) harboured by socially excluded people in Mumbai.

Paper 4

The politics of hope: Perspectives from Sao Paulo

Professor Vera Schattan Coelho Pereira, Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento 

– Sao Paulo

In this paper, we challenge this widespread assumption by analytically and empirically investigating the ‘the politics of hope’ (Appadurai, 2013: 129) harboured by socially excluded people in Sao Paulo.