Scaffolding collective hope and agency in youth activist groups: ‘I get hope through action’

We argue youth-led social justice movements are key sites for building collective hope in the face of the existential threats of colonisation, climate change and sexual violence. Building on the concepts of projective agency and affective scaffolding, we create an analytical framework to understand how collective hope was created and challenged in the work of six activist groups in Aotearoa New Zealand. The groups in our study encompassed a spectrum of intersecting causes – Indigenous rights, climate justice, feminist and queer rights, and social and economic justice. We attended campaigns and meetings and followed the groups’ social media between 2018 and 2021, and conducted interviews with a total of 90 participants, asking about what inspired, and sustained, their activism. We found that activists created collective hope in the groups they were part of through being, and acting, together. The commitment to shared goals, a sense of community, a belief in mutual efficacy through democratic participation, and courage to take action are integral to building collective hope. To sustain a sense of projective agency in the face of intractable issues required a variety of strategies, including affective scaffolding and support, to keep moving forward.