This article brings together a theorisation of hope with the everyday practices of participatory research against a difficult – often entrenched – policy context. We posit that ‘hope-labour’ can characterise engagement in participatory research, which can itself be generative of hope as part of resistance to the status quo. This novel analysis links, and is relevant to, broader theorisations of resistance and critical policy analysis. While there is a growing recognition of the need to subvert traditional forms of political activism and engagement, there has been less specific theorisation of how and why participatory research might play a role. This article corrects this, drawing directly on four years of participatory research working with parents and carers living on a low income to explicate how hope manifests in our practice. We argue it is important to recognise and carefully work through the significant ethical challenges which characterise hope-labour in participatory research. These include how hope is mobilised and the markedly different ‘stakes’ at play in working with hope for researchers and participants. These represent stubborn challenges, and it is incumbent on researchers to be transparent with participants about them in line with an ethics of reciprocity and feminist research praxis. Research can be aimed at a different – and radical – future, because of its orientation towards delivering substantive changes but also, and significantly, because it foregrounds a fresh, different way of collaborating and connecting, one that values and incorporates a diversity of expertise and promotes collective self-determination rather than competition.

中文翻译：

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“当我们把想法和想法放在一起时，政策制定者会倾听我们的声音”：希望工作和参与式研究的潜力


本文将希望理论与参与式研究的日常实践相结合，以对抗困难的——通常是根深蒂固的——政策背景。我们认为，“希望劳动”可以表征参与式研究，这本身可以作为对现状的抵抗的一部分产生希望。这种新颖的分析将更广泛的抵抗理论和批判性政策分析联系起来，并与之相关。虽然人们越来越认识到需要颠覆传统形式的政治激进主义和参与，但关于参与式研究如何以及为什么可能发挥作用的具体理论较少。本文纠正了这一点，直接借鉴了四年来与低收入父母和照顾者合作的参与式研究，以阐明希望如何在我们的实践中表现出来。我们认为，重要的是要认识到并仔细解决参与式研究中希望劳动的重大伦理挑战。这些挑战包括如何调动希望，以及研究人员和参与者在与希望合作时明显不同的“利害关系”。这些代表着顽强的挑战，研究人员有责任根据互惠伦理和女权主义研究实践，对参与者保持透明。研究可以针对一个不同的、激进的未来，因为它的导向是带来实质性的变化，而且重要的是，因为它突出了一种全新的、不同的合作和联系方式，一种重视和整合多样性专业知识并促进集体自决而不是竞争的方式。