In the introduction to Walking the clouds: An anthology of Indigenous science fiction (2012), Grace Dillon opens with reference to a Drew Hayden Taylor play in which one of the characters is an Indigenous science fiction writer who resists their writing being limited to a mechanism to educate non-Indigenous Canada about Indigenous people, and instead just wants to follow their own creative impulses while also making a living (p. 1). Encountering the concept of an Indigenous science fiction writer through Drew Hayden Taylor’s work, Dillon is inspired to ask herself the question "Does s[cience] f[iction] have the capacity to envision Native futures, Indigenous hopes, and dreams recovered by rethinking the past in a new framework?" (p. 2). She answers her own question when she says that this anthology “weds s[cience] f[iction] theory and Native intellectualism, Indigenous scientific literacy, and western techno-cultural science, scientific possibilities enmeshed with Skin thinking" (p. 2).
She says, "The stories offered here are thought experiments that confront issues of 'Indianness'” (p. 2) and also describes the stories as a "mindscape" (p. 3). The parameters of the mindscape are described through the names of the sections in the book: “Native Slipstream; Contact; Indigenous Scientific Literacies and Environmental Sustainability; Native Apocalypse, Revolutions, and Futuristic Reconstructions of Sovereignties; and Biskaabiiyang, ‘Returning to Ourselves’: Beyond the Shadow-Worlds of Postmodernity and the (Post)Colonial." (p. 3). She doesn’t explain these titles. In the actual sections themselves she does not use these full section titles, which only appear in the introduction. Nevertheless, I find the titles intriguing, particularly the description of postmodernity and postcolonial spaces as shadow-worlds.
Dillon references
Indigenous scholars who may be familiar to those engaged in Indigenous studies,
invoking Gerald Vizenor's Survivance (p. 6), Lawrence Gross's concepts of
post-apocalyptic stress syndrome, aakozi (Anishinaabemowin for being out of
balance), and returning to bimaadiziwin (being in a state of balance) (p. 9),
and Linda Tuhiwai Smith's approach to decolonization, which Dillon describes as
"changing rather than imitating Eurowestern concepts" (p. 10). She
doesn’t go into depth about the work of these scholars, but I interpret this
gesturing as a signal to the reader that reading these stories can be a
scholarly activity. Sometimes people think of science fiction as light
entertainment. By connecting Indigenous science fiction to the work of
Indigenous scholars, she signals that studying science fiction can be serious
work. She says, "In the end, Walking the Clouds returns us to ourselves by
encouraging Native writers to write about Native conditions in Native-centred
worlds liberated by the imagination" (p. 11). I note that this book is
part of a series, Sun Tracks. The editorial board for Sun Tracks includes
Indigenous scholars such as Joy Harjo, Simon J. Ortiz, and Leslie Marmon Silko.
A few years later, in 2016, Drew Hayden Taylor published a book
of his own science fiction short stories, Take us to your chief: and other stories.
This is especially fun because it was his play that Grace Dillon was watching
when she was inspired to create the term “Indigenous futurisms.” He doesn’t
characterize his work as Indigenous futurisms, but I generally think of
Indigenous science fiction as being in the realm of Indigenous futurisms, and
thus, I think of his as Indigenous futurism. It is a playful book. Taylor says,
“I wanted to take traditional science fiction characteristics and filter them
through an Aboriginal consciousness,” (p.viii). A prolific author in a number
of genres, he says “I’m an old hand at hybridizing” (p.viii). Regarding the
goals of his work, he says “Part of my journey in this life both as a First
Nations individual and as a writer is to expand the boundaries of what is
considered Native literature. There is more to Indigenous existence than
negative social issues and victim narratives” (p.ix). With respect to why he
chose science fiction, Taylor says:
Some critics might argue our literary perspective is a little too predictable—of a certain limited perspective. For example, a lot of Indigenous novels and plays tend to walk a narrow path specifically restricted to stories of bygone days. Or angry/dysfunctional aspects of contemporary First Nations life. Or the hangover problems resulting from centuries of colonization. All worthwhile and necessary reflections of Aboriginal life for sure. But I wonder why it can’t be more? (p. ix).
mitewacimowina: Indigenous science fiction and speculative storytelling was published in 2016 by Indigenous-owned publishing house Theytus Books. Neal McLeod, editor, explains the title of the book in the introduction. It is a Cree word with two roots: mitew and acimowina. “The stem mitew refers to someone who has spiritual power, and someone who does thing beyond the ordinary—and perhaps beyond explanation. acimowina, simply means ‘stories.’ This collection involves two elements which overlap with one another: science fiction and speculative storytelling” (p. 4). He notes that science has been “used in the project of colonialism” (p. 4) and that “within some streams of Indigenous science fiction, there might not be so much a celebration of the possibilities of science, but rather a critique of science, and how science and technology have been used to propagate colonialism” (p. 4).
With respect to the
theme of space exploration, he notes that some stories focus on “the space of
the mind and the imagination. Space is not only the terrain of the physical
world, but also the terrain of the soul… the stars within us, and within our
bodies” (p. 4). He notes that some of the stories in the collection reimagine
history and “explore Indigenous history and experience” (p. 5). He notes that
some of the stories “bend time another way—by drawing on the past, our
understanding of the present is amplified” (p. 6). He concludes the
introduction by stating that Indigenous science fiction and speculative
storytelling “provides a means for reimagining Indigenous political and social
situations. These narratives provide a way to reshape Indigenous futures and
also to reshape understandings of the past,” and that he hopes that “the
publication of this volume will encourage the flourishing of this trajectory of
Indigenous literature” (p. 7).
Hope Nicholson (2016) wrote the "letter from the
editor" for Love beyond body, space & time:
An Indigenous LGBT sci-fi anthology. As a non-Indigenous person, she
speaks to balancing the tension between her own desire to share stories and
Indigenous and LGBT individuals’ right to privacy (p. 7). She notes, for
example, that there are reasons why Indigenous people restrict certain stories
to their community and there are reasons why transgender people “do not discuss
aspects of their transition” (p. 7). She says “I selected the genres of
speculative fiction, science fiction, and fantasy for this collection as it is
my belief that there is a tendency to restrict Indigenous stories to one time,
one place, and force culture to be something to be looked at from a distance. I
hope that by having stories unburdened by time, place, or space, that it
creates connection” (p. 8). She says that all of the authors identify as
Indigenous and most of them identify as queer, bisexual, lesbian, transgender,
or lesbian (p. 8).
Grace Dillon (2016) also wrote a foreword to Love beyond body,
space & time: An Indigenous LGBT sci-fi anthology. She asserts
“colonial gender-binaries and sexual regimes” were “imposed by the legacy of
nineteenth-century white manifest destinies,” and that Two-Spirit stories are
“refashioning ancestral traditions in order to flourish in the post-Native
Apocalypse” (p. 9). She says:
SF [science fiction] survivance stories are not about survival. SF survivance stories are about persistence, adaptation, and flourishing in the future, in sometimes subtle but always important contrast to the mere survival, or the self-limiting experience of trauma and loss that often surrenders the imagination to creeds of isolation and victimhood, the apprehension of hopelessness, helpless entitlement to an extirpated past. SF survivance stories project near and far futures where Indigenous peoples reclaim sovereignty and self-determination. (pp. 9-10)
Niigaan Sinclair (2016) also wrote a foreword to Love beyond body,
space & time: An Indigenous LGBT sci-fi anthology. He begins with
historical non-Indigenous reactions to a two-spirit person from the 1800s (p. 12-13).
Then he discusses contemporary use of the term “two-spirit” and their roles in
historical and contemporary Indigenous communities (p. 14-15). He points out
that LGBTQ and two-spirit Indigenous individuals experience double oppression—racism
and homophobia, and he claims that some scientific theories have been used to
uphold racism and homophobia (p. 16). He says:
I would add that science has been the predominant foundation for arguments supporting colonial hatred and fear of Indigenous LGBTQ and two-spirit traditions. Arguments based in biased and Darwinian understandings of science, constructing what is ‘normal,’ ‘civilization,’ and ‘order’ formed the basis for Christian ideas of ‘natural law’ and legal principles that legislated and justified hate. These systems perpetuated violence against Indigenous peoples and created cycles that undermined community principles, divided families and clans, and constituted not only ‘cultural genocide’ but actual, physical genocide. (p. 16)
He notes that writing (fiction, laws, media) has been used to
misrepresent Indigenous LGBTQ and two-spirit identities. He also notes that
over the course of three centuries, some Indigenous people have internalized
these oppressive narratives. However, “Indigenous two-spirit community members
continue to gift us one of the longest and most extensive stories of revolution
and agency in North American history. Indigenous two-spirit artists have been
using love to overcome hate across time and space—and even beyond it” (Sinclair,
2016, p. 17). He says that this collection is “a recognition of Indigenous
LGBTQ and two-spirit traditions,” but “none of these stories are solely about
history. These narratives are about the future, time-travel and other worlds.
They are visions and re-visions of a complete and full Indigenous tomorrow” (p.
17). He notes that this collection takes these tools of oppression – fiction
and science – and “re-makes them” (p. 19). The stories “gift us ways of seeing
reality beyond that which we have inherited and see science and fiction of what
it always should have given us” dreams, hope, and possibilities beyond what we
think we see” (p. 17).
Read, listen, tell: Indigenous stories from Turtle Island (2017) is a critical reader edited by a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars: Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, David Gaertner, and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill. In the introduction, the authors explain that one of the goals of the reader is to “resist categorization,” (p. 2) including breaking down the “false duality that is sometimes assumed between ‘stories’ and ‘literature,’ particularly in the context of university study, which confers greater prestige on ‘literature’” (p. 2). They hope the reader teaches people “to engage with those writers and against naturalized colonial world views and hermeneutic tools” (p. 3). They provide a number of examples of Indigenous literary theory by Craig Womack, Deanna Reder, Harold Cardinal, and Leslie Silko.
They state, “We demonstrate ways that readers can approach the stories
through Indigenous contexts, epistemologies, and ways of knowing, all the while
appreciating that there is no one way to interpret a story” (p. 3). The
introduction outlines the structure of the reader, which contains works by
authors from Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and includes scholarly
introductions to each section and each work. The section on Indigenous fantasy
and SF states that “Indigenous authors have composed stories in any number of
genres, including (but not limited to) fantasy, science fiction, erotica, and
horror” (p. 325). They state that the authors in this section are “shaping,
adapting, and indigenizing well-known literary genres to create some of the
most innovative, provocative, and fun-to-read short fiction available” (p. 326).
However, there is a caution that “an uncritical genre application risks
mirroring colonialism: assigning top-down categorization instead of recognizing
the author’s own unique forms of storytelling” (p. 326).
Joshua Whitehead wrote the introduction to Love after the end: An anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer speculative fiction (2021). He says, “these are stories that highlight a longevity of virology and a history of genocidal biowarfare used against Indigenous people across Turtle Island since the docking of colonial powers into our homelands” (p. 9). He says originally this book was going to be dystopic, but then a decision was made to turn it into a book about utopias, as “we have already survived the apocalypse—this, right here, right now, is a dystopian present. What better way to imagine survivability than to think about how we may flourish into being joyously animated rather than merely alive?” (p. 11). He refers to Sara Ahmed’s queer fatalism, where being queer is fatal (p. 11). As an example, he points to a historical example where an early American painter expressed that he would rather see Indigenous queerness “extinguished” rather than “recorded” (p. 11). As another example of Indigenous queerness as fatal, he points to “contemporary erasures and appropriations of the term Two-Spirit by settler queer cultures who idealize, mysticize, and romanticize our hi/stories in order to generate a queer genealogy for settler sexualities” (p. 11).
Whitehead says, “utopias are what we have to build, and build now, in order to find some type of sanctuary in which we and all others can live” (p. 12). He invokes the nehiwawewin word “nikanihk” which means “in the future,” and “put her/him in front” (p. 12). As such, the anthology puts Two-Spiritedness in the front.
He shares a story from
one of his elders where she could not find medicine to harvest, and so she
prayed and asked for it. And when she opened her eyes, it was there in front of
her (p. 15). He extends her story to say it was a story “of how to find what we
need when we need it” (p. 15). “So here, in this anthology, I, too put medicine
down for you so that you may see the braids of Two-Spiritedness glowing the
glaze of ink and paper. And I hear my Two-Spirited persona Jonny Appleseed
reverberating in my thorax, itching to sing: ‘We are our own best medicine’” (p.
15). With respect to the other authors in the collection, he says that they
“equipped themselves with beaded breastplates and dentalium earrings in order
to tell you their stories,” and “now more than ever we need these stories:
stories of Earth, mothers, queer love, trans love, animality, kinship, and a
fierce fanning of care” (p. 15).
Chelsea Vowel's 2022 Buffalo is the new buffalo is her own collection of eight science fiction short stories. In addition to being an author of fiction, Chelsea Vowel is a scholar, blogger, and podcaster. Her podcast, Métis in space, was established in 2014 and claims to be the world's only and most famous Indigenous science fiction podcast. My favourite Métis in space episode is an analysis of the Disney cartoon Lilo and Stitch (Vowel & Swain, 2016). Being a fan of the podcast, I was very excited when I saw that she had written this book. Each story in her book is followed by her own explanation of the story in order to help the reader understand the story. In her preface, she says “You don’t have to be Métis to get it!” (p. 13). She says that Métis/nehiyaw have their own story conventions, and she has integrated Métis conventions into these stories in such a way that may not be legible to non-Métis/nehiyaw readers. She says that she is “making space to respond to mainstream speculative fiction either by Métis-fying it (adding Métis literary conventions and allusions/history/cultural aspects) or subverting it by switching observer-subject roles” (p. 14).
She says stories have power and her writing
“seeks to engage in that transformation, making space for Métis to exist across
time, refusing our annihilation as envisioned by the process of ongoing
colonialism and questioning the ways we are thought to have existed in the
past” (p. 14). As such, her stories “extend Métis existence beyond official
narratives, beyond current constraints” (p. 14); they challenge “the divide
between fact and fiction” (p. 14). She says Indigenous futurisms “are not
synonymous with science fiction and fantasy,” and points to Tsilhqot’in
filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown’s ?e?anx: The cave as an example of
Indigenous futurisms being an expression of Indigenous ontologies. She gives a
nod to Afro-futurisms, and asserts that “Whitestream science fiction insists
that colonialism is inevitable” (p. 16). Additionally, she says that when Black
people, Indigenous people, and people of colour create content, they “push back
against the colonizing narrative of whitestream speculative fiction,” and with
a nod to Walidah Imarisha, she says “it can also be a form of social justice
organizing” (p. 16).
She defines herself as a “Métis-futurist” (p. 18). She says “accepting
Métis cosmology and relationships as true, as science fact, offers alternatives
to prescribed colonial roles for Indigenous peoples in the past, the present,
and the near and far future. This opens up space and time to set goals for the
future that do not privilege the colonial project without having to provide a
step-by-step plan for how to achieve these futures” (p. 19). Additionally, she
says:
Given the way in which indigenous peoples are so often forced to reactively hyperfocus on the present and on day-to-day survival, having some space to cast ourselves as far into the future is vital and potentially emancipatory. Setting these stories in contexts that explicitly reject anti-Blackness, heteronormativity, classism, ableism, patriarchy, and white supremacy is one way to think about how to overcome colonial logics. (p. 20)
Works Cited
Dillon, G. (2015). Imagining Indigenous futurisms. In
G. Dillon (Ed.), Walking the clouds: An anthology of Indigenous science fiction
(pp. 1-14). Tuscan, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press.
Dillon, G. (2016). Beyond the grim dust of what was.
In H. Nicholson (Ed.), Love beyond body, space & time: An Indigenous
LGBTQ sci-fi anthology (pp. 9-11). Winnipeg, Manitoba: Bedside Press.
McCall, S., Reder, D., Gaertner, D., L'Hirondelle
Hill, G. (2017). Read, listen, tell: Indigenous stories from Turtle Island.
Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier Press.
McLeod, N. (2016). Introduction. In N. McLeod (Ed.), mitewacimowina:
Indigenous science fiction and speculative storytelling (pp. 3-8).
Penticton, British Columbia: Theytus Books.
Nicholson, H. (2016). Letter from the editor. In H.
Nicholson (Ed.), Love beyond body, space & time: An Indigenous LGBTQ sci-Fi
anthology (pp. 7-8). Winnipeg, Manitoba: Bedside Press.
Sinclair, N. (2016). Returning to ourselves: Two
Spirit futures and the now. In H. Nicholson (Ed.), Love beyond body, space
& time: An Indigenous LGBTQ sci-fi anthology (pp. 12-19). Winnipeg,
Manitoba: Bedside Press.
Taylor, D.H. (2016). Take us to your chief. Madeira
Park, British Columbia: Douglas & McIntyre.
Vowel, C., & Swain, M. (Hosts). (2016). Lilo and
Stitch (Season 3, Episode 6) [Audio podcast episode]. In otipêyimsiw-iskwêwak
kihci-kîsikohk, Métis in Space. Indian and Cowboy Media. https://soundcloud.com/m-tis-in-space/Métis-in-space-season-3-episode-6-lilo-stitch
Whitehead, J. (2020). Introduction. In J. Whitehead
(Ed.), Love after the end: An anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer speculative
fiction (pp. 9-16). Vancouver, British Columbia: Arsenal Pulp Press.
***
This is an excerpt from my dissertation, Singing into the Machine, p.48-54
This is a sister blog to https://twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com/
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