This article concludes that the best way to trigger the reciprocal relationship between hope and emancipation is to innovate with institutions that jointly build hope and emancipation. Handouts to the poor without nurturing optimism to empower themselves to solve their own problems are not the solution. Neither is a psychologism that builds hope without concrete support and the flow of resources needed for structural change. Cognitive change in how people imagine a better world, micro-institutional change (illustrated here with the “Emancipation Conference”), and macro-structural change must be strategically integrated for emancipatory politics to be credible.
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