Paper short abstract:

For Salvadorans and Romanian Roma alike, aspirations do not function in a vacuum, but are a function of kin relations. Beyond the binary of realization or failure, aspirations instantiate social processes; as such, they are shared ethical projects shaped by obligations and value conflicts.

Paper long abstract:

Our paper examines ethnographically and comparatively how aspirations shape the sociality of two distinct communities: rural Evangelical Salvadorans and urban Roma from southern Romania. Whether because they are materially deprived or socially excluded, for both of these groups aspirations are functions of kin relations, which are instrumental in realizing or hindering them. In this paper, we therefore analyse how kinship ties interact with our interlocutors’ aspirations to create a space of potentiality, an imaginary of a ‘good life,’ and especially a shared ethical project that goes well beyond the binary of realization and failure that usually frames discussions of aspirations. We argue that, even though the people we worked with are well aware of the many obstacles, both structural and intimate, that complicate or hinder their aspirations altogether, aspiring remains a type of emotional labor that they employ to imagine better futures and that consequently infuse and shape their relations with kin, both near and far. Taking issue with Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism,” we posit that a better way to analyze the contradiction between a group’s aspiration and managing good kinship relations is through the lens of obligation and values conflicts. We then conclude by asserting that our interlocutors do not fully ever expect to rectify the contradictions with which they live; rather, it is precisely through engaging with them that they live out (in their own terms) ethically good lives.