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- Convenors:
-
Raluca Bianca Roman
(Queen's University Belfast)
Alex Archer (University of Cambridge)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel invites ethnographic and theoretical contributions concerning the aspirational striving for that which cannot be realised. The aim is to understand the everyday experience of living in the shadow of hopes that go unachieved and the social consequences this effects.
Long Abstract:
The definition of 'aspiration' is 'the hope or ambition of achieving something'. To aspire, to hope, to want is common to people across social, geographic, and historical settings. But what of the failure to realise an aspiration? The experience of not quite succeeding, of not entirely living up to, of being less than one might perhaps wish, is similarly common. A failure to realise an aspiration should not simply be regarded as the opposite of its achievement, but as complementary to it: each may be seen, in fact, to derive its character and force from the other and to gain greater meaning from their interaction. In this panel, we explore that human experience of hopeful striving and the everyday reality of living with aspirations that go unrealised. We invite papers that examine ethnographically the nonachievement of aspiration and the sociality that ensues, from across any range of social-cultural contexts. How might we, for example, engage with situations in which people strive for that which cannot be reached, yet those aspirations nevertheless provide motivational force? What kinds of insights may be drawn from the interaction between such hopeful imagining and its everyday frustration? What is it to live in the shadow of unrealised hope and how might it be described ethnographically? The aim is that this panel will provide a forum to consider the experience of reaching for that which cannot be grasped and the wider theoretical and ethnographic implications in the study of unmet aspirations.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Emanuela Nadia Borghi (University of St Andrews)
Paper short abstract:
This ethnographic contribution casts light on female survivors’ emotions related to the failure of their dreams and hopes. An intersectional approach shows the social consequences of the embodiment of unachieved aspirations by survivors considering cultural and socio-economic factors in Italy.
Paper long abstract:
This contribution aims to provide an anthropological perspective on how emotions related to unfulfilled hopes and ambitions are embodied by survivors of gender-based violence seeking help from the Italian NGO system. I aim to show how the embodiment of these emotions affects their everyday life and its social consequences. The multi-sited fieldwork took place within the Italian anti-violence network of NGOs based in Milan (Italy, 2018-2021). The ethnographic methodology adopted (long-term participant observation, semi-structured interviews, collection of women’s narrative biographies) allows me to understand how the ‘pawns’ of political, institutional, and structural forces emerge as women who shape their own aspirations. My analysis of survivors’ unfulfilled dreams and aspirations required an ethnography capable of grasping a sense of the unknowable and the unachievable in the flow of daily life, the 'quasi-event', the tension towards the future that resides in the present. My ethnographic focus on the voices of more than twenty women sheds light on their experience of a ‘new marginality’ as a social consequence of living in the shadow of unachieved life goals. Survivors experience a persistent marginality because of the failure of their dreams of prosperity in terms of job placement, personal improvement, and liberation from traditional gender positioning. The specific positioning of the survivor (determined by ethnicity, nationality, socio-economic status, gender) in the social arena shapes women’s life trajectories toward unrealised hopes. The woman's body becomes the site where hopes and failures are negotiated and materialized subjectively daily.
Matthew Gault (Queen's University Belfast)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will examine the ways victims’ groups and individuals use commemorations, rituals, and storytelling to sustain the memory of their loved ones while holding aspirations for a form of justice which may not be realised in post-conflict Northern Ireland.
Paper long abstract:
During the conflict in and about Northern Ireland, 115 people lost their lives in County Fermanagh. Only 5% of the investigations into those killing resulted in convictions. Victims of the conflict across County Fermanagh have been campaigning since 1998 for investigations and inquests to be carried out into the deaths of their loved ones. These campaigns have met with some minor success, but on the whole little progress has been made on holding perpetrators to account for their actions throughout the conflict. Many feel that, since former members of paramilitary groups are in government, they are being denied justice to protect those in power and maintain peace within the province. In spite of this, they still have aspirations for what they see as true justice, where perpetrators are imprisoned and the parties that supported them are disbanded. Victims know that these aspirations may be impossible to realise. This paper will examine the ways victims’ groups and individuals use commemorations, rituals, and storytelling to sustain the memory of their loved ones and challenge a system which they believe would prefer them to remain silent while managing the tensions between the hope of obtaining justice through the courts and the reality that, as we progress further from the end of the conflict, such justice is unlikely to be obtained.
Ida Leggett (Middle Tennessee State University)
Paper short abstract:
US schools fail refugee youth by encouraging ideals of the American Dream that these students—by virtue of their history and future desires—have little chance of absorbing, while also creating unexpected results as the students push back.
Paper long abstract:
One of the main institutions shaping the daily experiences and future aspirations of refugee youth resettled in the United States is the education system. Using data from interdisciplinary research at a Tennessee high school conducted from 2015-2017, my presentation explores how the US school system fails its refugee students through its presentation of moral “lessons” on the American Dream. Interspersed throughout classroom modules on American history, and even mathematics and science, educators attempt to carve out a perspective of the universe that revolves around models of American success. Unfortunately-- or perhaps fortunately-- these are lessons that refugee students, by virtue of their own history, culture, and desires for the future, have little chance of absorbing. By trying to reshape these youths’ perspectives on their transnational pasts and possible futures, the educators set up an unattainable goal for both the students and for the education system. However, these lessons on idealized American identity take on interesting forms in the classroom, and refugee students resist and push back in unpredictable ways. My presentation argues that, while teachers present an American Dream that is almost impossible to realize, the schools have also given rise to new and more global ideas of citizenship and success.
Tim Burger (LMU Munich)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how aspirations are mediated and, in turn, to what extent mediating concepts shape social forms. I argue that in São Jorge the notion of casa, denoting both material building and normative idea, organizes the desire for recognition while restraining certain aspirants’ prospects.
Paper long abstract:
As this panel states, people around the world aspire to certain ideals or things – and often they fail to realize these aspirations. Yet, by what means do people aspire? How are specific ways of reaching for something shaped by the actual thing people aspire?
In this paper I explore difficult-to-realise aspirations through the analytic of the house (casa) in São Jorge Island, Portugal. Drastic depopulation has led to a surplus of abandoned houses, while the recently emerging tourism industry skyrocketed the price of any dwelling, from ruined stable to inhabited house. This situation creates financial opportunities for some people but not others; it thereby makes houses the lynchpin of potential wealth and social mistrust. At the same time, the concept casa not only refers to an asset but is understood as a normative category organizing belonging and moral status. Put bluntly, if somebody does not own a house, or worse, does not belong to a proper household (also casa), there is a high chance of being socially marginalized.
Tracing the hopeful aspirations and recurrent failures of my interlocutors, I argue that casa is a pivotal medium to understand the striving for a specific form of individual personhood. The local experience of nonachievement is crucially shaped by frustrations and hopes bound up with houses. Put differently, while many of my interlocutors intensely aspire material houses, the moral category of casa accommodates and restrains the ability to reasonably aspire in general.
Yueran Tian (Bielefeld University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores unmet entrepreneurial aspirations of migrant factory workers in China. I argue that rather than helping young workers to escape from low-wage jobs, unmet entrepreneurial aspirations become a form of exploitation.
Paper long abstract:
Entrepreneurial aspirations are common among migrant factory workers in China. Young workers unsatisfied with their status quo take part time jobs that claim to help achieve their dreams. Recruitment narratives of these part-time job organizations such as direct sales companies form a sharp contrast between workers’ repetitive tasks facing the assembly line and a sense of freedom working with people. From short term aspirations such as trips to different parts of China to long term goals like providing a good life for themselves and their parents, young workers believe that they are able to escape from the low-wage job and become business leaders. Recruiters exaggerate the fun part of the job and brand it as an opportunity for self-development while in reality, young workers have to participate in various events during their already limited free time. Moreover, new recruits invest a lot of money which makes it even more difficult for them to leave the organization so that they have to rely on the wage job as their safety net. Young workers rather than turning into rich entrepreneurs max out credit cards or apply for internet based loans in order to sustain their stay in the organization. Unmet entrepreneurial aspirations in this case become a form of exploitation that puts young workers in debts rather than fulfilling their hopes.