ABSTRACT
Continuing the discussion on contemporary indigenous–state relations, this chapter delves deeper into the dynamics between hope and power. The research reflects on the politics of hope and its colonial heritage on the conceptual level. Critical scholars engaged in native studies have pointed out how comprehending the logic of contemporary colonialism, and the ways in which it is allowed and enabled to continue, requires one to move beyond its discrete episodes and easy fixes to its structural and processual foundations. Being explicitly and brutally violent, the historical forms of colonialism were easier to detect. Its less overt and less visible manifestations have proven the most persistent and widespread. As we argue, one of the prime under-currents in contemporary colonial power relations is that change (for the better) might be on the horizon but will not take place for a while. Illustrating this, the chapter examines the ways in which the politics of hope echoes such colonial mentalities through care, resilience and neoliberalism. The analysis concludes with the argument that the grammar of hope cements a very colonial condition of hope-less in which some always have less hope, less of a right to hope and, ultimately, less to hope for. This constitutes a novel view of hope and the dimensions of power at work in it.
