“The Indian in space seeks to feel at home, to undo her perceived strangeness by asking: why can’t indigenous peoples also project ourselves among the stars? Might our collective visions of the cosmos forge better relationships here on earth and in the present than colonial visions of a final frontier?
Many of the ideas deemed strange or new-fangled in Western sci-fi come naturally to the space NDN. The all-pervasive “force” or similarly the super brain connecting all beings. The animism and agency of cyborgs, AI systems, and other non-human people. Alternate dimensions and understandings of non-linear time. These are things the space NDN knows intuitively. This is not the future but historical knowledge. The future is reclaiming these technologies not for domination but for new organizations aimed at better worlds. I am reminded of Octavia Butler’s words, “There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” Instead of imaging a future in bleak cities made from steel and glass teeming with alienated white masses shuffling under an inescapable electronic glow, indigenous futurists think of earthen space crafts helmed by black and brown women with advanced knowledge of land, plants, and language.
Indigenous futurism seeks to challenge notions of what constitutes advanced technology and consequently advanced civilizations. As settler colonial governments continue to demand more and more from the Earth, indigenous peoples seek the sovereign space and freedom to heal from these apocalyptic processes. Extractive and exploitative endeavors are just one mark of the settler death drive, which indigenous futurism seeks to overcome by imagining different ways of relating to notions of progress and civilization. Advanced technologies are not finely tuned mechanisms of endless destruction. Advanced technologies should foster and improve human relationships with the non-human world. In many indigenous science fiction tales of the futures, technology is presented as in dialogue with the long traditions of the past, rather than representing the past’s overcoming.”
- Lindsey Catherine Cornum,“The Space NDN’s Star Map.” The New Inquiry, January 26, 2015.
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