Abstract
This chapter considers how the strategies for coping with long-term uncertainties employed by the respondents in the study informing this book can be conceptualised. The discussion focuses specifically on the use of hope in coping with uncertainty due to both the prominence of hope in the findings, and the prevailing association between uncertainty and fear which has, until recently, sidelined hope as a serious object of study in this area. Empirical and theoretical studies of hope are used to address issues such as the relationship that hope may have with agency or action. Ultimately, this chapter concludes that hope has utility for future thinking not because it has a specific moral orientation, but because it is comparatively more productive than other expressions such as denial.
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Cook, J. (2018). The Utility of Hope. In: Imagined Futures. Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65325-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65325-9_6
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