‘Things should be better’ – Immobility, labour and the negotiation of hope amongst young Ghanaian craftsmen

Drawing on an ethnography of life in a Ghanaian weaving workshop, this article traces the intersections between young rural weavers’ affective labour, hope and their experiences immobility. Hope is explored as ambivalent resource which shapes shared, social materiality craftwork, spiritual beliefs give meaningful shape to challenges craft livelihoods imaginaries lived compose sense migration mobility. Entangled precarious logics late capitalism, these hopes simultaneously offer craftsmen existential mobility, whilst curtailing circumscribing possibilities for sustained systemic change. In this, ‘not-yet’ hopefulness immobility examined complex political field, shot through with tense anticipation, longing disappointment.