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Short abstract:

This paper proposes that, besides goal-setting, responding to urgent, societal challenges involves accepting the grim situation one is in, and responding to that situation in real time, with what resources are available. I dub this approach starting from hopelessness.

Long abstract:

Faced with a climate catastrophe and associated health, migration and food and energy security crises, international governance has sought to coordinate action through initiatives like the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the specification of Grand Challenges for research. But is goal-setting the only, or even the best, way to respond to crisis? This presentation explores a sideways approach: it proposes that perhaps responding to urgent, societal challenges involves accepting what grim situation one is in, and -instead of building strategy to respond to that situation in some future time- exploring what is doable now, in real time, with what resources are available.

I dub this approach starting from hopelessness. I first introduce work on Taoist and Buddhist thinking which proposes resigning oneself to the actual, versus striving towards the envisioned, as an approach to action. I then define hopelessness as a. having a desire for an outcome, b. holding a belief that this outcome is possible, and c. accepting the situation one is in. I propose that starting from hopelessness may allow opportunities and relations to emerge as conducive to goal-achievement that goal-achievement plans may instead block.

The talk illustrates this approach through examples from real-life crisis responses in Orissa and Wayanad, India. It further connects starting from hopelessness with ‘staying with the trouble’, with ‘contingency approaches’ in the field of Planning, and with improvisational practices rooted in the arts.