Abstract Hope is sometimes dismissed as a feel‐good attitude that discourages people from taking meaningful action. In climate debates, many activists and scholars frame fear as a more effective motivator than hope. Yet in rural Namibia and Kenya, as well as in several recent social movements, hope is experienced as a vital force that sustains people in their efforts to create change. Drawing on these experiences and on phenomenology, we examine whether hope can productively address the climate crisis. We show that practical hope can transform situations by warding off despair, enabling achievement, and drawing others into collective action. We also describe how our interlocutors understand their heart as growing stronger when they confront hardship with hope, indicating an ontological shift toward a more resilient and hopeful self. We conclude that practical hope is effective, and that anthropology should communicate more hope‐filled narratives that contribute to an atmosphere in which transformative change becomes possible.
Abstract While young children globally are eager to help adults, older children display significant cross‑cultural differences: Western children often become reluctant to do chores, whereas Indigenous children in many Latin American communities maintain strong motivation. To elucidate the origins of these divergent trajectories, this study compares maternal ethnotheories, socialization goals, and practices concerning children's involvement in household chores among Münster middle‑class (MMC) mothers (Germany) and Kichwa Indigenous (KI) mothers (Ecuador). Mothers observed pre‑recorded videos of mother–child interactions during mealtime preparation from both cultural contexts and evaluated the observed practices while reflecting on their own socialization aims. Results revealed not only different views on socialization goals and practices but also striking differences in how housework is emotionally and relationally framed. MMC mothers emphasized children's freedom of choice, the provision of choices, and hands‑on task engagement, and described weekday routines as time‑pressured. KI mothers valued children's learning through observation, self‑sufficiency, and alignment with family responsibilities, viewing housework as a context for bonding. Interestingly, both groups characterized the interactional atmosphere in KI families as more harmonious than in MMC families. These findings suggest that cross‑cultural differences in children's prosocial motivation are rooted in divergent socialization goals, practices, as well as in the broader relational‑affective organization of everyday work.
This article examines the play activities of Yurakar & eacute; children in Bolivia. Using an ethnographic methodology of systematic observation, participant observation, and field notes, the study shows that children aged 2 to 7 most frequently engage in manipulative play, followed by gross motor play and imaginative play. Children typically play with peers or alone and rarely with adults. Their daily activities are characterized by a high degree of autonomy. Their play repertoire gradually transforms into subsistence-oriented activities as children in their late childhood engage in practices such as fishing on their own initiative and within peer groups. This article describes one such case. The findings highlight how children autonomously and playfully align themselves with culturally contributive activities, while also demonstrating their agency to modify routine practices within the village. Este art & iacute;culo examina las actividades de juego de los ni & ntilde;os Yurakar & eacute; en Bolivia. Mediante una metodolog & iacute;a etnogr & aacute;fica basada en la observaci & oacute;n sistem & aacute;tica, la observaci & oacute;n participante y las notas de campo, el estudio muestra que los ni & ntilde;os de 2 a 7 a & ntilde;os participan con mayor frecuencia en juegos manipulativos, seguidos por juegos de motricidad gruesa y juegos imaginativos. Los ni & ntilde;os suelen jugar con sus pares o solos y rara vez con adultos. Sus actividades cotidianas se caracterizan por un alto grado de autonom & iacute;a. Su repertorio de juego se transforma gradualmente en actividades orientadas a la subsistencia, a medida que los ni & ntilde;os en la infancia tard & iacute;a participan en pr & aacute;cticas como la pesca por iniciativa propia y dentro de grupos de pares. Este art & iacute;culo describe uno de estos casos. Los hallazgos destacan c & oacute;mo los ni & ntilde;os se incorporan de manera aut & oacute;noma y l & uacute;dica a actividades culturalmente contributivas, al tiempo que demuestran su capacidad de agencia para modificar las pr & aacute;cticas rutinarias dentro de la comunidad.
Ethiopian migrant domestic workers frequently experience violence and abuse during employment, which can lead to serious emotional and mental distress. After returning to Ethiopia, some distressed women receive care at residential facilities specifically dedicated to rehabilitating returned domestic workers. In this paper, I examine the narratives from previously distressed domestic workers living in one such facility to understand how they view and respond to the distress of newly arrived returnees. I suggest that through embodied knowing they position the returnees' distress as familiar, and, importantly, as ambiguous and temporary. It is at this intersection of ambiguous-familiarity where I situate an ethics of care marked by an empathic understanding of having-been-there and what-will-be, a past and future oriented knowledge that precipitates caring responses marked by calm, gentle, and ordinary engagements-a therapeutic sociality. I demonstrate that while empathy may be central to other therapeutic communities across various histories and geographies, it is a foregrounding of embodied knowledge and the imaginative projection of what-will-be amongst previously distressed returned Ethiopian migrant domestic workers that is distinctive to their ethics of care, and may offer both a practical and ethical resource for rehabilitating returned domestic workers.
