Critical hope (and hopelessness) in youth participatory arts praxis: #ImaginingOtherwise

This article considers moments from youth participatory arts praxis in Cape Town, South Africa. Hopelessness can ensure that dreams and desires are quashed and keep one ‘in place’ (Muñoz, 2009). We thus consider the role of ‘concrete struggle’ [Giroux, Henry. 2004. “When Hope is Subversive.” Tikkun 19 (6): 38–39], how it relates to youth ‘agency’ [Häkli, Jouni, & Kallio, Kirsi P. 2018. On Becoming Political: The Political in Subjectivity. Subjectivity, 11, 57–73] and what is particular about exploring these through arts approaches. We explore the significance of what Henry Giroux calls ‘critical hope’ while attending to the mobilising energies of ‘critical hopelessness’. The article considers youth meaning-making through their collective creative actions as core dimensions of critical hope and hopelessness.