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Sustainable activism: managing hope and despair in social movements

A new generation of activists is developing a much healthier and more emotionally-intelligent culture.

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PaulHoggett2.jpg
PaulHoggett2.jpg

Credit: Flickr/Takver. Some rights reserved.

In her study of ACT UP, the direct action AIDS movement in the USA in the 1980s and early 1990s, Deborah Gould noted the powerful role that emotions play in animating social activism. She observed that any movement that seeks to make things better in the world has to manage despair.