‘Waiting to be called’: rural youth, hope and future-making in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Amidst increasing livelihood precarity, many of Indonesia’s rural youth continue to hope for a better future. This article examines five life stories of young people living through insecure livelihood opportunities and uneven processes of agrarian change in the Maros Regency of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. While previous research describes the livelihood constraints facing rural youth in Indonesia, fewer studies centre hope in their analyses of how young people rework uneven trajectories of change. We discuss how hope is embodied in the varied ways youth face, renegotiate, and plan their futures in rural places. Young people participate in a process of ‘future-making’ as they move between and draw on different ‘modes of hope’ (including patient, estimative and resolute) at different times and life stages. Rural youth hope for a better future and actively embark on activities–from migration, education and local entrepreneurialism–to realise these futures. Yet, we also find that feelings of hopefulness are shaped and constrained by underlying class and gender dimensions (including prospects for land ownership), as well as societal expectations. The study foregrounds the importance of young people’s hopes and subjective emotions in shaping the pursuit of livelihood trajectories and processes of ‘future-making’ in rural spaces.