Economic crises, climate catastrophes, rising authoritarianism, violent conflicts, and war challenge people’s daily lives across the globe. These threats not only fuel anxieties and dystopian imaginaries but also open spaces to (re)create hopes for the future. Departing from this diagnosis and with an analytical focus on the concept of hope, this special issue delves into visions and practices of future-making in the global, multifaceted crisis and aims to shed light on social contestations and negotiations surrounding collective futures. The four contributions, engaging with case studies in Germany, South Africa, Rojava, and Canada, explore how future imaginations are socially constructed and negotiated, and investigate affective, strategic, and action-oriented ways to engage with the future. The approach of this special issue hereby emphasizes the how social structure, future imaginings, and agency are interconnected and how the struggles for hope materialise themselves in the here and now as open, future-oriented, and unfinished practices.