In committing to certain hopes today, the humanity charts ways forward to a more liveable world. These ambitions are captured in the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the Goals and the attendant actions have been in the political limelight, less attention has been paid to the power of the hopes embedded in them. This chapter interrogates the inequalities and hegemonies in the hopes inscribed in the SDGs – facets of political power that have gone unacknowledged. By drawing on scholarship on hope and the notion of politics of hope, we examine the struggles between different futurities in the SDGs. Whose hopes, and thus futures, do the SDGs serve?
In order to bring to light the hierarchy of hopes in sustainability politics, the chapter delves into the ongoing debates on the use of land and natural resources in northern Finland, Sweden and Norway. The Indigenous peoples of the region, the Sámi, have expressed hopes that strongly diverge from those etched in the SDGs. The examples presented underline how sustainability politics is replete with hopes deriving from dominant Western visions. Decolonising SDGs requires the unsettling of the foundations on which our sustainability hopes have been built.
This seminar contributes to the seminar series of the EU-funded Jean Monnet Module project REPAIR.
The lunch seminar will take place in the NU-02B01 meeting room at the New University Building of VU Amsterdam. You don't need to register, it's a free open-door event! Lunch will be provided upon arrival.
For questions, please contact the Cluster Coordinators Özlem Terzi or Jorien Vonk.