Hope is deeply utopian, not in the colloquial or naïve sense of idealism, nor as mere "wishful thinking." Hope is a political and imaginative praxis. It is rooted in the capacity and willingness to envision a radically different "there and then," and to work toward it, even when the "here and now" feels insurmountable. I have always taken Gramsci’s dictum to heart: “pessimism of the mind; optimism of the will.” It indicates the will to confront the structural conditions that produce oppression, inequality, violence, and despair, while still insisting on the enduring possibility of meaningful social change. Past and present, after all, are full of moments of agency, resilience, and resistance—collective or individual—even when dominant common sense insists that “there is no alternative.”

I detect hope in the lifeworlds of my interlocutors—the residents of Gebze, an industrial city on the outskirts of Istanbul. In their stories, hope is sedimented in the mundane acts of endurance, improvisation, and collective struggle that have defined everyday life in the periphery for decades, in varied forms and narrations. In the face of infrastructural violence, political repression, and environmental degradation, hope emerges as a situated praxis of survival and resistance. It surfaces in the refusal to be displaced, in the reclaiming of space through occupation and protest, in the affective ties that bind neighbors and coworkers into communities of solidarity. Hope is inscribed into the very fabric of the urban periphery—an insistence on staying put, on making do, on imagining otherwise from within the rubble of imposed peripherality. It is an optimism rooted in the sharp minds of Gebze’s activists, who have torn open the time-space fabric of the industrial periphery, offering brief yet powerful glimpses into other possible futures.

I also find radical, insurgent, and resolutely utopian hope in the project of democratic confederalism in Rojava in Northern Syria. Amidst the scorched and war-torn geography, a grassroots form of governance has emerged that dares to reimagine life itself, an autonomous life rooted in gender equality, ecological sustainability, and stateless democracy. The Rojavans gesture powerfully toward a Middle East otherwise. It is a living, breathing utopia. Yes, it is fragile but still defiant and crafted precisely through and against violence and collapse. For me, Rojava stands as a beacon. There, utopian hope is practiced in real time, against overwhelming political and military odds. It reminds me that even in the most devastated landscapes, new social imaginaries can take root, carried by the will of ordinary people daring to dream beyond the nation-state, beyond patriarchy and racism, and beyond capitalist extractivism, all the fundamental ills of modern times.