Resistance And Hope

Resistance and Hope

Hope and Despair in Narrative and Family Therapy

How do experiences of hope and despair impact upon our capacity to meet life's challenges in narrative and family therapy? Clients' experiences of hope and despair can be complex, reflecting individual and family histories, current patterns and dynamics, the stresses of everyday life, and the social contexts of families' lives. This book analyses how therapists meet and engage with these dichotomous aspects of human experience. The editors place the themes of hope and despair at the centre of a series of reflections on practice and theory. Contributors from all over the world are brought together, incorporating a range of perspectives from narrative, systemic and social constructionist frameworks. The book is divided into three sections, covering: reflections on hope and despair facing adversity: practices of hope reflections on reconciliation and forgiveness. Hope and Despair in Narrative and Family Therapy looks at the importance of hope in bringing about positive therapeutic change. This book will be of great use to family therapists, psychotherapists, counsellors, and students on therapeutic training courses.

The Colonial Politics of Hope

Through analyses of cases in Australia, Finland, Greenland and elsewhere, the book illuminates how states appropriate hope as a means to stall and circumscribe political processes of recognising the rights of indigenous peoples. The book examines hope in indigenous–state relations today. Engaging with hope both empirically and conceptually, the work analyses the dynamic between hope, politics and processes of rights and recognition. In particular, the book introduces the notion of the politics of hope and how it plays out in three salient cases: planned constitutional changes that would finally recognise the indigenous peoples of Australia, the lengthy debate on the ratification of ILO Convention 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries in Finland and the prospect of Greenland’s independence after its gaining self-government in 2009. Juxtaposing these contexts, the book illustrates the ways in which hope has become a useful political tool in enabling states to sidestep the peoples’ claims for justice and redress. The book puts forward insights on the power of hope – by definition future oriented – in diminishing the urgency of present concerns. This is hope’s most potent colonial force. This book brings together studies on indigenous–state relations, social scientific discussions on hope, and critical postcolonial, feminist and governmentality analyses.