Contingent Hope: Everyday Crisis and Future Imaginaries among Venezuelan Migrants in Colombia

In this article, we analyse the experiences of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia by drawing on fieldwork conducted in the cities of Bucaramanga and Medellín between May 2021 and May 2022. We argue that though the situation facing Venezuelan migrants in Colombia is characterised fundamentally by hardship, at the level of everyday experience it is also one shaped by hope. Engaging with recent debates concerning aspiration and care in situations of precarity, we describe this mode of being as contingent hope: as an orientation towards the future premised on the desired improvement of specific circumstances. We contend that the capacity to maintain hope is derived from the strength of kinship ties that stretch across borders and enable emotional investments in the future.