Hope as a Critical Resource for Small Scale Farmers in Mpumalanga

I contrast formal institutional structures that are part of water resources management policy and practice with more fluid ‘outside’ spaces that I claim are more apt for participatory engagement around food production. I link these ideas to a discussion on hope. I make three distinct contributions. First the paper expands on the theoretical concerns of the Capability Approach by bringing to the fore the linkages between subjective well-being and emotions. The paper thus connects the Capability Approach and discourses of affect and emotions explicit. The Capability Approach (CA) is a helpful entry point into the idea of hope in particular and emotions in general. Second, I claim that emotions are of public concern and that they are embedded structurally. In these spaces the dimension of power is crucial in determining the nature of the emotions that are experienced, and there is a connection between hope and power. I argue that emotions mediate and inform social action and are a function of social processes. Third, I affirm that in the essentially technical and masculinised world of water, rural women farmers are more likely to experience positive feelings, such as self-esteem, hope, pride and dignity, in informal ‘outside’ spaces. Within the context of an ethics of care, the idea of ‘particularism’ places value on concrete circumstances and individual experience and the incorporation of emotions and compassion into a social justice discourse. I propose that hope be considered amongst a range of mental states contributing to valuable and complex social functionings that are relevant for assessing poverty and human development. Looking at emotional life might help answer the question: what makes people do what they do – and whether and in what ways they take on (or do not take on) board opportunities that present themselves? The article concludes that hope is a mental state that helps command commodities and helps achieve functionings. As such hope is an input as important as seeds and fertilizer for small-scale farming.