If there is one word that sums up Andy Burnham’s approach to becoming Prime Minister it is ‘hope’. It was, he said, his moral mission to bring back hope. The Greens’ rhetoric too has foregrounded the promise of hope. It feels like a long time since progressives could feel genuinely hopeful about the future of British politics, whatever are the stumbling blocks that lie ahead. Yet in many ways these remain dark times. Raging wild fires across Continental Europe and elsewhere serve as a salutary reminder of the worsening climate emergency; wars and conflicts continue notably in Ukraine, Iran and Sudan; the Palestinians continue to suffer in both Gaza and the West Bank; and the far Right grows in strength across Europe, encouraged by the authoritarian in the White House who wreaks the most absolute damaging havoc across the world. Is hope therefore self-indulgent parochialism?
‘No’, is my answer in this paper which was first given in July (in slightly different form) as a keynote at the Social Policy Association annual conference, the theme of which was ‘hope in dark times: resistance and radical change’. However, dark the times globally, I believe we have to look for hope where we can, in particular where resistance flourishes in its various forms. Indeed even in Trump’s US, Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York has been held up as a ‘global moment of hope’.
Over 130 charities joined forces in May to promote a million acts of hope based on the principle that hope is ‘not a slogan or a nice idea, but something that people do’ (italics added). If a report from Ukraine tells us that ‘people find ways to hold on to hope in the darkness’ one example being ensuring the roses bloom in public spaces as ‘a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance’ [2]; and Majdoleen Abu Assi, a project coordinator in Gaza, can write of a ‘defiant and beautiful hope’ in the middle of ‘grief and exhaustion’ ‘because we are still here, weaving hope from the threads of ruin’ [3], then it is incumbent on us not to despair however difficult the times. And as Parastou Forouhar, an Iranian artist in exile told the Guardian ‘every act of resistance is a spark of hope’ [4]. At the end of last year’s Reith Lectures, Rutger Bregman declared his hope in ‘the power of small groups to rally around an ideal to fight for human rights, to fight for human dignity’ and in the decency to be found in human nature. This, he argued, points the way to the narrow path towards a ‘hopeful utopian world’ [5].
The paper begins by talking in general terms about hope, resistance and the nature of change and then explores each briefly in relation to feminism, children, asylum-seekers and refugees, and poverty. In doing so I have been guided by Les Back’s advice that ‘as scholars the attentiveness we pay to the world is part of hope’s work’ and that ‘part of the role of a hopeful scholarship is to portray and document an inventory of those moments ….where “islands of hope” emerge from within the midst of despair’ [6]. It concludes with some brief reflections on radical change before ending with some musical ‘islands of hope’.
Hope, resistance and change
Writing this paper encouraged me to read some of the literature on hope, in particular the work of Rebecca Solnit – author and climate and human rights activist. Doing so was a real tonic! I was also guided by a very useful overview of the literature in an article on ‘hope work’ by Maddy Prior and Ruth Patrick [7].
In the foreword to the new edition of Hope in the Dark (the clue is in the title), published last year, Solnit writes, ‘This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both’ [8]. In his classic Pedagogy of Hope, Paulo Freire referred to hope as ‘an ontological need’ that ‘needs practice’ and he wrote that ‘we need critical hope the way a fish needs unpolluted water’ [9].
Note the reference to critical hope here. He, Solnit and others have not written at length about hope as some kind of Pollyana-ish refusal to acknowledge dark times, or as Jonathan Lear puts it averting one’s gaze ‘from devastating reality’ [10]; what has been dubbed ‘cruel optimism’. Conversely, they warn against what Solnit calls the ‘enemies of hope’ – ‘despair, cynicism and pessimism’ each of which, in different ways, renders us powerless [11]. She quotes the Bulgarian writer Maria Popova; ‘critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivete’ [12].
In similar vein, Freire makes clear that hope alone will not transform the world and indeed ‘action undertaken in that kind of naivete is an excellent route to hopelessness, pessimism and even fatalism’. It has to be the motor for struggle: ‘without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle. But without the struggle, hope, as an ontological need, dissipates, loses its bearings and turns into hopelessness’ [13]. And as Solnit puts it, ‘hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope’ [14]. So hope and action feed each other in a dynamic loop that can lead to change.
And this is where resistance comes in. Prior and Patrick call it ‘the locus of hope’. Hope here, they observe, ‘is not an emotion but a practice…characterised by critical thought, action and transformative behaviours; hope can mobilise us to change the present and to act for a better future’ [15]. Solnit declares her belief in ‘hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance’ [16]. She argues that ‘part of resistance must consist of refusing’ counsels of despair whose message is that we are powerless to effect change. Resistance can be both collective and individual. Social movements are the obvious examples of collective resistance.
Individual resistance might be harder to see but is often what James C. Scott termed ‘everyday resistance’. Scott suggested that unlike more institutionalised forms of resistance, it is ‘informal, often covert and concerned largely with immediate, de facto gains’ at the expense of the more powerful rather than with ‘public and symbolic goals’ [17]. There are also psychological and discursive forms of resistance. Broad constructions of the political, rooted in feminism and a Foucauldian concern with the micro-processes of power relations, attest to the significance of every day micro-resistance. And as Solnit observes ‘nobody can know the full consequences of their actions, and history is full of small acts that changed the world in surprising ways’ [18]. Tiny, temporary or partial victories should not be dismissed or forgotten.
She grounds her arguments in a view of change as ‘rarely straightforward’ [19]. And through an appreciation of where we have come from, hope can help us look forward to the future, thereby linking past, present and future. This is a theme of Solnit’s latest book where she celebrates the ‘immense impact’ of a whole range of human rights campaigns and of ‘the rise of environmental awareness’. But she is clear that ‘to say that things have changed is not to say that the change is finished or is complete, or that all things have changed for the better, when so many things have obviously changed for worse’ [20]. In describing acts of hope she frequently uses the metaphor of ‘seeds’ – ‘seeds with which to plant forests of possibility’ [21]. It’s such seeds that I believe can be found in the examples that follow – of course not all seeds germinate but they are planted with hope.
Feminism
One of the areas of change that Solnit discusses is feminism. She emphasises the importance of remembering the victories achieved: ‘shifts in the status of women are easily overlooked by people who don’t remember that, a few decades ago, reproductive rights were not yet a concept, and there was no recourse for exclusion, discrimination, workplace sexual harassment, most forms of rape, and other crimes against women the legal system did not recognise or even countenance. None of the changes were inevitable, either – people fought for them and won them’ [22].
Even today, I take encouragement from for instance fathers who are campaigning for decent parental leave in the UK that enables them to play a fuller role as fathers in the private sphere of the family, which a number of us have long argued is crucial to enabling mothers to play a fuller role in the public sphere of politics and the labour market. And just recently, we won amendments in parliament to decriminalise women seeking abortion outside the time limit, with retrospective effect.
Of course gains won can be lost again and Solnit describes the last decade as ‘a rollercoaster of gains and losses’ [23]. This is very much the message of Natasha Walter’s new book: Feminism for a World on Fire, which, like Solnit’s work, emphasises how the climate and ecological crises overshadow our dark times and the importance of these crises to the feminism practised by women in many parts of the world [24]. At the same time, in a backlash to feminism, misogynist ideologies and violence are gaining strength throughout the world aided by online culture and in some countries authoritarian regimes.
Walter’s book, which takes a global perspective, provides plenty of examples of how ‘even in the most difficult times, the harshest places, women keep working to resist oppression and inequality’. In the face of misogyny, violence and patriarchal authoritarianism she writes of constant ‘messages and pictures from women voicing their determination to defend their rights’. And she takes particular hope from the flowering of grassroots networks and projects that again lend themselves to the metaphor of ‘seeds’. She is careful not to project a sense of false optimism but nevertheless believes that we have to trust that the energy and courage shown by these women ‘may create the space for hope’. Even in Afghanistan, where women and girls are being subjected to femicide and what has been described as ‘gender apartheid’, examples of resistance – overt and covert – keep the flame of hope alive [25].
The degradation of and violence against women and girls encouraged by a misogynistic manosphere is particularly worrying. But women are fighting back against the promotion of sexualised images by the ‘tech bros’. And resistance to violence and degradation has been fuelled by, for example, the inspiring response of Gisele Pelicot whose husband drugged and subjected her to the indescribable horror of rape by 50 men night after night. Her courage in waiving anonymity at his trial and her powerful declaration that ‘shame has to change sides’ [26] have given women in many countries the hope that male violence can be resisted.
Asylum and migration
Less positively, violence against women and girls has also been weaponised by the far right in their resistance to asylum seekers and refugees – a resistance that far from promoting human rights and equality is antithetical to them, but in the name of protecting women and girls. Women have been active in this resistance, for example through a group called the Pink Ladies, who also demonise asylum-seekers as a threat to their children.
A group of organisations including Women for Refugee Women and Southall Black Sisters have published a guide, entitled Not in Our Name, on how to resist this weaponisation. They warn that VAWG is increasingly being used as ‘a justification for racism, xenophobia and hostility…a weapon to target migrant people, refugees and people seeking asylum and to make our communities less safe’. The impact, they underline, is ‘devastating’ – diverting attention from the ‘real causes of and solutions to violence against women and girls’. Their guide argues that the weaponisation of VAWG in this way increases ‘ the risk of harm and marginalisation of Black, minoritised and migrant victim-survivors’. Its advice includes foregrounding hope as a more powerful motivator than fear [27].
The support for far Right demonstrations, at both local and national level represents for many of us a particularly dark aspect of our dark times domestically. It’s been noted that it is in part a reflection of the mainstream political normalisation of far right discourse on immigration. It is not helped when even a Labour Government describes asylum-seekers, with the right to seek asylum, as ‘illegal migrants’, thereby encouraging public hostility. Measures harmful to the rights and well-being of asylum-seekers and refugees and to their integration are then taken in an attempt to appease this hostility. Nevertheless, even here there are grounds for hope in the many groups who have resisted this normalisation and who have defended asylum seekers and refugees, in the name of hope not fear or hate – for example in Belfast where many showed solidarity in opposition to unspeakable racist and xenophobic violence. And who didn’t take some heart from the good citizens of Minnesota who showed solidarity with immigrants – their neighbours – subject to arbitrary and violent detention prior to deportation by ICE?
Of course resistance does not come only from those who ally themselves with asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants but also from those who seek to cross borders themselves. People with lived experience are often involved in the refugee organisations I work with in the Lords – for example refugees keen to support those seeking asylum behind them. And immigrants who stand to be affected by current proposals to lengthen significantly the qualifying period for settlement have been active in the widespread opposition to them. Writing about a trip to a Westminster rally against them, Tamirat A. Tsega called it a ‘journey of voices and hope’, which ‘reminded us of our shared strength and resilience. Many of us have faced hardship and uncertainty, but coming together in solidarity gave us hope’ [28].
A new book on migration by Leonie Ansems de Vries underlines how migrants’ own resistance takes many forms [29]. This can range from direct resistance to ‘violent bordering practices and/or hostile environment policies’ both collectively or as individuals through to ‘everyday practices that bring people together and foster affective relations and communities of solidarity, friendship and care’. These can ‘create openings or cracks’ that offer hope and through which ‘we can imagine different worlds and futures that energize us to keep going’. This describes well my local refugee forum in Nottingham which among other things has created a beautiful garden that offers solace at a time of vulnerability and uncertainty – a crack that lets the light get in.
De Vries conceptualises such resistance and struggle as part of a ‘politics of exhaustion’ which she defines as ‘both a technique of governance that is designed to drain and exhaust, and as a lived experience of being subjected to and struggling against this violence’. I think we often underestimate the sheer exhaustion experienced by people seeking sanctuary after long and often very dangerous journeys. The notion of a politics of exhaustion brought to mind a campaign by the Baobab Centre that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have crossed the channel should have ‘time to recover’ before being subjected to age assessment procedures at the Border. One such child told Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit ‘I was really tired. I’d been 15 hours in the middle of the sea. I said can I have some time to sleep first, but they said no we have to do the interview now’ [30].
Children
These are in many ways dark times for the UK’s children generally. In their latest Good Childhood Report, the Children’s Society detail a significant decline in children’s wellbeing reflecting financial struggles, lack of family support, having no friends and bullying at school [31]. High intensity use of social media also appears to be detrimental to children’s wellbeing (including sexual grooming). Overall, the UK does not come out very well of international comparisons of children’s wellbeing.
An edited collection on urban childhoods published last year acts as antidote to this rather gloomy picture by offering ‘a hopeful vision for the future of urban childhood’ rooted in action and research in Bradford and Tower Hamlets [32]. It presents ‘the city as a hopeful place’ in which children and young people can contribute to its development if they are listened to. And they see ‘hope around local actions joining with research and research organisations based in trusted community settings, and listening to localised and largely unheard evidence’. This last point was also one of the themes of Roger Green and Keith Popple’s account of fight back against top down urban regeneration in which they offer examples of what they call ‘creative resistance’ and the hope that these generate [33].
The urban childhoods collection ended on a note of hope given the then new government’s commitment to improving children’s quality of life. To some extent this has been borne out- witness for example, the child poverty strategy, action on free school meals and breakfasts, planned reforms to make the education system work better for marginalised children, and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act. But there was some disappointment that that Act was not as focused on children’s wellbeing as the title implies and Ministers were resistant to attempts by myself and others to write in a children’s rights perspective for instance by placing child rights impact assessments on a statutory footing, as recommended by the Covid-19 Inquiry, or by outlawing the physical chastisement of children. Here the Westminster government has much to learn from Wales and Scotland. It seems reluctant to do so, although it has listened to children in the development of its child poverty strategy and is committed to involving them in the monitoring of its impact. Indeed, although the original child poverty strategy document did not mention children’s rights, the subsequent Monitoring and Evaluation Baseline Report does emphasise that ‘a children’s rights approach underpins’ its work, with the voices of children playing a central role [34].
Poverty
Turning to poverty, on a personal note it’s over 50 years since I started work at the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). I was there during the Thatcher years which were enough to grind the hope out of anyone. But we kept going, practising what I called finger in the dyke politics, trying to stop things being even worse than they might have been – and occasionally succeeding. Poverty and inequality soared during those years. Wide inequality remains entrenched, child and pensioner poverty were reduced under New Labour and then rose again under the Tories, with child poverty deepening. It was difficult to remain hopeful.
We do now though have a government that claims reducing child poverty is its ‘moral mission’. For all the limitations of the child poverty strategy, it represents an important turning point on the past decade or so and does have some very positive features. The centrepiece – the abolition of the 2 child limit – is a good example of how hope refused to be dashed. First we were told in no uncertain terms by Keir Starmer that a Labour government would keep the limit. Then there was a long period of shadow boxing when No. 10 briefed the media that either an alternative policy would be promoted to reduce child poverty or that the limit would be modified in various ways rather than abolished. Those who continued to fight for its abolition – and there were many inside and outside parliament – were dismissed as misguided fools. But we didn’t give up and continued to hope against what seemed like the odds.
This was at the same time both a huge and a tiny victory. Huge because it will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty, the biggest single reduction achieved by any government. But tiny because, even though the government projects a welcome overall reduction of 400,000 in the number of children in poverty by the end of this parliament, there will still be 3.6 million children (a quarter of all children) in poverty if further steps aren’t taken to build on the child poverty strategy [35]. And tiny because we are facing – in England at least – an anti-social security backlash encapsulated in the constant, false narrative of the need to bring down a ‘ballooning, out of control, welfare budget’ (spending on working age social security has remained at around 5 per cent of GDP over the past decade). Although the tone of the child poverty strategy document itself was very positive in its discussion of social security, ministers have failed to challenge this narrative.
In contrast, in his foreword to a report on the Scottish child poverty strategy, the First Minister wrote ‘I see every day how vital social security is for families across Scotland. It is essential infrastructure and a core investment in our people’ and he anchored the plan in ‘hope’ [36]. Even if the plan itself is insufficient to meet the legislation’s targets, such a statement does give cause for hope with regard to the direction of travel in a manner that I’m afraid Westminster ministerial pronouncements on so-called welfare do not. So it is left to civil society organisations, such as Turn2Us, to try to make that positive case for social security [37].
I have to maintain hope that we can make further progress on poverty reduction but what has perhaps given me most hope in recent years has been the growing involvement of people with experience of poverty in debates about and action against poverty, building on the long time work of organisations such as ATD Fourth World. I have learned so much from them, in particular about poverty as a social relation. Examples are the Poverty Truth Commissions, APLE (Addressing Poverty with Lived Experience) and Changing Realities which brings together academics, people with lived experience and CPAG. One of the strengths of the child poverty strategy has been the active engagement with Changing Realities who contributed a foreword to the document in which they wrote ‘we have experienced genuine listening and collaboration’ [38]. And there is a commitment to continuing this engagement as part of the strategy’s evaluation and development.
Changing Realities very kindly invited me to pose a ‘big question’ to members and so I asked them what gives them hope in dark times and what does everyday resistance mean to them. I can’t do all the responses justice but I think they help illuminate the importance of both hope and resistance to those who are struggling. For a number of them it was involvement in Changing Realities itself that gave them hope: Erik W [all pseudonyms], for instance, having had no concept of hope as he lived from day to day bringing up his daughter, found hope through ‘campaigning hard’ with others in similar circumstances and wrote ‘we must hold onto the hope we have to help deliver a fairer future for all’. Celia sees hope as a ‘motor during dark times’ as ‘even in dark times, we need to believe that things can improve for the better and light is there’. In similar vein, Sadie Q likened hope to ‘a lamp, sometimes shining bright and other times quite dim with barely a flicker of light’ but warned it’s not enough on its own hence her involvement in Changing Realities: ‘I want to work collectively to have our voice heard and campaign for a better quality of life’. Working collectively and mutual support were frequently cited as an important source of hope.
John H spoke for a number of respondents when he said that what gives him hope is usually ‘the little things, the unobtrusive deeds of compassion people perform even when they don’t have much’ and even when it’s difficult to hold on to ‘it still exists in little moments, in compassionate people, and in the potential for positive changes in life’. Allie M summed it up well ‘Hope in dark times comes from people – community support, small acts of kindness and believing things can change. Even in poverty, standing together and staying strong keeps hope alive’. A similar spirit of collective solidarity embodying both hope and resistance reflects a theme of Helen Blakely’s study of women in the South Wales Valleys in the face of welfare state restructuring [39].
Some Changing Realities respondents linked the difficulties of maintaining hope with resistance. Rose for instance said ‘I think it just means that one has to have fight’. Again resistance often involves the ‘little things’. For John H it ‘entails refusing to be silenced or devalued by unjust structures…or to put up with disrespect just because someone is in a position of authority’. And he suggests ‘these modest deeds serve as a reminder that, despite challenging circumstances, I still have a voice’. For Ollie U ‘everyday resistance is not giving up’ and ‘a safe place like Changing Realities, where you can speak up and tell your story unashamedly is its own kind of resistance’.
Such examples very much chime with what I wrote in my book on poverty about ‘getting back at’ or everyday resistance as a form of agency, often exercised at the micro level but none the less important for that [40]. John H’s reference to refusing to put up with disrespect speaks to how stigma is, in the words of Imogen Tyler, ‘a site of intensive social and political struggle’ as it ‘gives rise to resistance’ [41]. This struggle can be both individual and collective and can take many forms including poetry and photography.
The sheer fight for survival can itself be a form of resistance as brought out by a recent article about Palestinian women’s on line appeals for help during the war in Gaza and the West Bank. The authors, based in An-Najah National University of Palestine, argued that ‘these appeals are more than cries for help; they are acts of grassroots resistance…a quiet form of resistance, allowing Palestinian women to assert their dignity and agency despite relentless adversity’ [42]. Their message was echoed by Taqwa Ahmed al-Wawi of Gaza writing in the Guardian how her family tended their garden in the midst of the Israeli bombardment: ‘Each drop of water was a tiny act of resistance…In a land ravaged by genocide, the garden persists – leaf by leaf, root by root. It is a chronicle of endurance and quiet rebellion’ [43]. Here the seeds of hope are more than the metaphor employed by Solnit and by the APLE collective who work in the belief that ‘from the tiniest seeds of change, we create gardens of hope’ [44].
Power and Patrick conceptualise participatory poverty research as a form of ‘hope labour’ [45]. A good example of such hope labour can be found in Katy Goldstraw of APLE’s recent edited collection on co-produced poverty activism and also the work of the Poverty Truth Commissions Network which has contributed to a new collection on the lived experience of poverty [46]. Both emphasise the importance of listening. ‘Let’s move from words to action, and let’s start by listening, really listening’ is the Network’s message [47]. It brought to mind a recent Guardian article by George Monbiot in which he stressed the importance of what he called ‘radical listening’ in combating the hard right who feed off ‘the exhaustion of being unheard’ especially in marginalised communities [48].
Towards a good society
Returning to a personal note, what has given me political hope in recent years has been my active involvement in Compass which has provided me with a political home. Two key elements of its work are I think relevant here. One is the importance of means as well as ends. We need to do politics differently – a theme explored also by Peter Beresford in The Antidote [49]. As Sue Goss concluded in a Compass pamphlet ‘We can’t wait for the perfect government. We need to start making [the good] society now and showing politicians what needs to be done’ [50]. What both that pamphlet and Beresford’s book demonstrate is how myriad groups on the ground are doing that work and in doing so are fighting back against the siren voices of the hard right – again seeds of hope.
The second reason is the idea of a good society that acts as a kind of lode star to the work of Compass, helping us to prioritise social ends over economic means and to imagine how things could be different. In a pamphlet written during lock down I sketched out some of the building blocks of a good society and ended with the civil and human rights activist Harvey Milk’s statement that ‘hope will never be silent’ [51]. More recently, Kate Pickett has published a book on the good society as a truly equitable society, her vision for which is grounded in a firm base of both empirical evidence and ethical values [52]. And that, she writes, makes her ‘hopeful that another state of things is possible’. That it might be possible at a global level is the message of a new Global Justice Report from the World Inequality lab, which among other things calls for a global wealth tax in support of a Global Justice Fund, which it describes as ‘a tool for equality and sustainability’ [53]. This chimes with the growing call for more effective taxes on wealth, including a wealth tax, in the UK, most recently from the Better coalition [54].
Conclusion
I want to conclude on a slightly frivolous note with reference to the importance of music to hope and resistance. When Woody Guthrie inscribed on his guitar ‘this machine kills fascists’ it was of course not meant literally but was a declaration of how music can be a form of resistance. Following the May elections the Poverty Truth Network sent newly elected members of the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd a curated playlist titled ‘Stubborn Hope’. Previously, the journalist John Harris suggested that the best singers and songwriters crystallise ‘their time while inspirationally making a stand against it’. Art can, he contends, act as a carrier of ‘a very human kind of hope’ [55].
This brings me to a brilliant Guardian article in which Steven Greenhouse wrote about a recent Bruce Springsteen concert in Brooklyn which he described as ‘a three hour-long ode to resistance’ against Trump. He said he came away ‘jazzed and inspired’ and with hope [56]. I was lucky enough to be at the first concert of that tour in Manchester last year when the Boss tore into Trump in a way I’d not seen any other public figure do. I too came away inspired and energised. We all need injections of hope and resistance if we are to survive the dark times and achieve radical change.
Postscript
Immediately after the session in which I gave this paper, an asylum choir from Asylum Link Merseyside gave a joyful and uplifting outdoors concert that exemplified what I had been saying about the power of music to offer hope and resistance. It left us all with big smiles on our faces.
Notes
Ruth Lister is a Labour peer and Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University. She is co vice-chair of the Compass Board.
[2] Liz Cookman ‘Ukraine is not just a map point. It is a spirit in all who believe, fight and refust to give up’ Observer, 22 February 2026.
[3] Majdoleen Abu Assi ‘Hope and hunger in Gaza this Ramadan’, The Guardian, 23 February 2026.
[4] ‘This is a revolution led by women’ Iranian women in exile speak out, Parastou Forouhar, as told to Mascha Malburg, Saturday Guardian, 18 March 2023.
[5] Rutger Bregman, Fighting for Humanity in the Age of the Machine, Reith Lectures 2025, questions and answers, 16 December, 2025.
[6] Les Back, ‘Hope’s work’ Antipode, 53(1), 2021.
[7] Maddy Power and Ruth Patrick, ‘When we put our thoughts and ideas together, policy makers are listening to us’, Hope-work and the potential of participatory research’, Sociological Review, 73(2), 2024.
[8] Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark, Canongate Books, 2016.
[9] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, Bloomsbury, 2021.
[10] Jonathan Lear, Radical Hope, Harvard University Press, 2006.
[11] Rebecca Solnit, No Straight Road Takes You There, Granta, 2025.
[12] Footnote 8.
[13] Footnote 9.
[14] Footnote 8.
[15] Footnote 7.
[16] Footnote 6.
[17] James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, Yale University Press, 1985.
[18] Footnote 8.
[19] Footnote 8.
[20] Rebecca Solnit, The Beginning comes after the End, Granta, 2026.
[21] Footnote 20 and also 8 and 11.
[22] Footnote 8.
[23] Footnote 11.
[24] Natasha Walter, Feminism for a World on Fire, Virago, 2026.
[25] See for instance, Gordon Brown ‘We cannot just stand by as the Taliban target women and girls’, The Guardian, 4 August 2026; Khadija Haidary, Zahra Nader, Hura Omar and Atousa Azar (the last two pen names) for Zan Times, ‘“Her face was beaten in”: how Taliban rule ushered in a new era of women being killed’. The Guardian, 8 August 2026; and ‘“Hear our voices” A day in the life of 12 Afghan women and girls surviving under Taliban rule’, The Guardian, 12 July 2026.
[26] Gisèle Pelicot, A Hymn to Life. Shame has to change sides, Bodley Head, 2026.
[27] End Violence against Women and others, Not in our Name: A practical guide
https://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/not-in-our-name-womens-rights-groups-reclaim-the-narrative-on-vawg/
[28] https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/from-manchester-to-westminster-a-journey-of-voices-and-hope/
[29] Leonie Ansems de Vries, Politics of Exhaustion, Bristol University Press, 2026.
[30] https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/147317/pdf/
[31] https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/information/professionals/good-childhood-report-2025
[32] Claire Cameron (ed) Urban Childhoods. Growing up in inequality and hope, UCL Press, 2025.
[33] Roger Green and Keith Popple, Neoliberalism and Urban Regeneration, London communities finding a voice and fighting back, Bristol University Press, 2025.
[35] Footnote 34.
[36] John Swinney, ‘Ministerial foreword – first minister’, Bringing Hope, Building Futures, Scottish Government, 2025.
[38] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696646bc99fbdc498faecd98/child-poverty-strategy.pdf
[39] Helen Blakely, Women, Work and the Everyday Politics of Welfare, Policy Press, 2025.
[40] Ruth Lister, Poverty (2nd edn), Polity, 2021.
[41] Imogen Tyler, Stigma, Zed, 2021.
[42] Ekrema Shehab, Bilal Hamamra, ‘Digital resistance and survival: Palestinian women’s online appeals during Gaza war’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 34(1), 2026.
[43] Taqua Ahmed al-Wawi ‘As the Israeli bombs fell, my family committed an act of rebellion: we planted a garden in Gaza’. The Guardian, 8 January 2026.
[44] https://www.aplecollective.com/
[45] Footnote 7.
[46] Katy Goldstraw (ed) How to Tackle Poverty with Co-Produced Activism, Policy Press, 2026; Mel Hughes, Debbie James and Carrie-Anne Mizen (eds), Poverty in the UK: The Lived Experience, Routledge, 2026.
[47] https://povertytruthnetwork.org/poverty-truth-maiden-speech/
[48] George Monbiot ‘How do we keep out the hard right? By radical listening’, The Guardian, 7 May 2026.
[49] Peter Beresford, The Antidote, Policy Press, 2025.
[50] Sue Goss, The New Settlement for a better society, Compass, 2024.
[51] Ruth Lister, Towards a Good Society, Compass, 2020.
[52] Kate Pickett, The Good Society and How We Make It, Bodley Head, 2026.
[53] Lucas Chancel, Jonas Dietrich, Cornelia Mohren, Rowaida Moshrif, Moritz Odersky, Thomas Piketty, Anmol Somanchi et al, The Global Justice Report: A Plan for Equality & Prosperity Within Planetary Boundaries, World Inequality Lab (gjp.wid.world), 2026.
[55] John Harris, ‘Flamboyant furious, full of hope – this is the sound of 2025’, The Guardian, 22 December 2025.
[56] Steven Greenhouse, ‘Springsteen v Trump…who’s the Boss?’ The Guardian, 27 June 2026.
A thoughtful and inspiring reflection on how hope and resistance can create meaningful change, even during difficult times. The emphasis on collective action, solidarity, and everyday acts of resistance is especially powerful.