Abstract
Popular narratives about youth activists often suggest they are optimistic to the point of naivety. But in our research with young activists in Aotearoa New Zealand, participants expressed a range of emotions that motivate them, and a mix of feelings about the possibilities for success. This ambivalence often plays a critical role in sustaining individuals and activist groups as they combat social injustice in manifold forms. Ambivalence is also work, though. Navigating its sources and effects becomes part of the emotional labour required to keep going when facing apathetic publics or movement setbacks. We build on work looking at ambivalence as useful, as a thinking and emotionally regulatory tool, as a hesitance or uncertainty that serves as an important resource for epistemic humility and creativity, and as a critique of the ‘feeling rules’ that discipline activism. We then discuss three ways that activists in our study understood ambivalence as central to their social justice work, before we reflect on the pedagogical import of ambivalence in activism.