As one of us remarks, our efforts can be, ‘hopefully, very impactful for those who get access to these ideas; migrants, Pākehā or whoever’ (RS3). Connecting to the emerging debate on geographies of hope (Hazlewood et al., 2023), we enact CAE's potential to help decolonising relations and regenerating spaces beyond academia. These reflections also highlight the interconnectedness of our localised practices of care with a broader feminist approach to promoting solidarity in interactions across scales (Gibson-Graham, 2011). By taking unexpected and brave paths towards the realities that we want to see and live in the future, we recognise the value of this participatory methodology for decolonial thinking and praxis (Chandrashekar, 2018) that supports the resilience of ethnic communities living in Pākehā/White-dominated societies.