Contextualizing decolonial hope: Thinking for coexistence and planetary sustainability

Hope, in its most generic sense, pertains to the ability of humans to aspire to an improved future as a response to adversity and challenges. An intuitive comprehension of belief in hope is fundamentally based on the notion that it engenders potentiality or possibility, “a postulate that reality transcends all conceivable assessments” (Marcel 1965 , 86), and there is a need to envision alternatives. While it is difficult to define hope due to its contentious nature across disciplines and academic fields (Webb 2013 ), it is widely accepted that hope is “what sustains life in the face of despair” (Zournazi 2002 , 15). Discussing hope, therefore, centralizes humanity’s capacity or determination for a more favourable existence and to overcome difficult circumstances. Hope has been the focus of cultural, intellectual, and spiritual enquiries over the ages; for example, it has been fundamental to Christianity and was recognized by St Thomas Aquinas as one of the theological virtues (Dalferth and Block 2016 ). Aquinas perceives hope as a distinct personal trait that propels humanity towards a redeeming path. The conceptualization of hope as a basic human drive has been pivotal in reinforcing western Enlightenment philosophy and consequently in establishing the basis of colonial modernity, which sought to facilitate the process of “becom[ing] more fully human, individually and collectively” (Wrigley, Lingard, and Thomson 2012 , 98). Colonial modernity champions human logic, rationality, and western scientific empiricism, along with a human-centric vision for the future of civilization. Ernst Bloch ( 1995 ), the German Marxist philosopher, is another significant thinker on hope, who posits that hope, as an inherent human aspiration for transcendence, is oriented towards the future rather than the supernatural or any elevated state of existence. Bloch accentuates human agency in determining historical events and progressing towards fulfilment, affirming hope as “the most human of all mental feelings” (75). The overarching discourse of individual and civilizational growth has been further solidified by various phases of capitalism, including the neoliberal era, during which advocates of globalization have attempted to foster individual growth through the principles of the welfare state, though critics such as Francis Fukuyama ( 1992 ) have declared that liberal democracy, despite its imperfections, signifies the “end of history” as it represents the ultimate idealistic reality with no alternatives. In other words, it is frequently argued that the neoliberal capitalist system has placed humanity in a state characterized by a capitalist “dictatorship of no alternatives” (Unger 2005 ), rendering efforts to improve existential conditions ineffective. But this does not deny and undermine the relevance of hope as we will discuss later.