ABSTRACT

People who live in misery and do not act against this condition may think that “there is no alternative”; that they have no hope to challenge their destiny. When they think that it is possible to change their destiny, they do so by uniting, organizing, consciously acting, struggling, and sometimes by fleeing away from their lands. When people think that their undesired conditions and place in the world can be changed by their actions, then hope emerges. Hope is an “ontological need”; we can not survive without it. It is produced in very different contexts and by different means, such as individually, socially, religiously, economically and politically. Increasing critical consciousness is helpful in creating hope in order to escape immiseration. It is also important in becoming “hopeful subjects” instead of falling into hopelessness. Crossing the old borders which prevent us from being human may give us a new space to live and new hopes.