WHAT IS INDIGENOUS AFRICAN SPECULATIVE FICTION?
Speculative fiction a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic or other imagined elements. This includes science fiction, fantasy, horror and all their subgenres including alternate realities, dystopia and utopia fictions, the realistic fantasy, cyberpunk, Afrofuturism, and more.
Indigenous African speculative fiction, as a contemporary genre, starts with Afrofuturism.. The term 'Afrofuturism' was coined by Mark Dery in 1994 during an interview with African American science fiction writer Samuel Delany for the book Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture where he defines Afrofuturism as:
"a speculative fiction that treats African American themes and addresses African American concerns in the context of the twentieth century technoculture—and, more generally, African American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future."
This definition is problematic because a white man put a name to Black work. This definition is also considered racist by many as it implies African Americans have no place in the future or in a technical world in general. African American artists have since adopted and redefined the definition to better reflect what they are doing.
"[Afrofuturism is] a cultural movement that uses the frame of science fiction and fantasy to reimagine the history of the African diaspora and to invoke a vision of a technically advanced and generally hopeful future in which Black people thrive: this movement is expressed through art, cinema, literature, music, fashion, etc."
Buchi Emechata's The Rape of Savi, published in 1983, and Ben Okri's The Famished Road, published in 1991, are the earliest works of published Africanfuturism, the science fiction sub-genre of indigenous African speculative fiction. These books were immediately classified as Afrofuturism. By late 2019/early 2020 African authors started to reject being placed in the Afrofuturism genre, as it did not reflect their work. Author Nnedi Okorafor coined the term Africanfuturism, and by by extension Africanjujuism, "a subcategory of fantasy that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative."
"Africanfuturism is similar to “Afrofuturism” in the way that blacks on the continent and in the Black Diaspora are all connected by blood, spirit, history and future. The difference is that Africanfuturism is specifically and more directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches into the Black Diaspora, and it does not privilege or center the West.
Africanfuturism is concerned with visions of the future, is interested in technology, leaves the earth, skews optimistic, is centered on and predominantly written by people of African descent (black people) and it is rooted first and foremost in Africa. It's less concerned with "what could have been" and more concerned with "what is and can/will be". It acknowledges, grapples with and carries "what has been"."
This is not to say that I a work can not be both Afrofuturist and Africanfuturist. Those born into the diaspora can write Africanfuturism, as Okorafor herself has proven. However, from a folklore perspective it is important to focus on those works written by African authors who were born and/or raised in Africa rather than those born to African parents in countries other than Africa and have never lived in Africa.
Folklore is more concerned with lived first-hand experience rather than second-hand stories. There is a very fine line here. While African parents can tell folktales, myths, and legends from Africa, and in other ways make sure their children are familiar with their African culture while being raised outside of Africa, they are not experiencing how the community interacts with these stories, customs, religions, etc. Community engagement and experience is a large part of what makes folklore, folklore.
Furthermore, those born into the diaspora have also been indoctrinated from birth into the West. This is going to color how they tell their stories. The culture of the West will creep into them in some way. Whereas someone born and raised in Africa have a remarkably different experience and can write about their culture from a lived experienced.
Folklore is more concerned with lived first-hand experience rather than second-hand stories. There is a very fine line here. While African parents can tell folktales, myths, and legends from Africa, and in other ways make sure their children are familiar with their African culture while being raised outside of Africa, they are not experiencing how the community interacts with these stories, customs, religions, etc. Community engagement and experience is a large part of what makes folklore, folklore.
Furthermore, those born into the diaspora have also been indoctrinated from birth into the West. This is going to color how they tell their stories. The culture of the West will creep into them in some way. Whereas someone born and raised in Africa have a remarkably different experience and can write about their culture from a lived experienced.
THE CASE FOR FOLKLORE VIA INDIGENOUS AFRICAN SPECULATIVE FICTION IN SCHOOLS
- Learning about those who are different teaches empathy. The reader gets to experience the world from someone else's view.
- Indigenous African speculative fiction via the folklore contained within introduces the reader to the different cultures and traditions across the African continent.
- Indigenous African speculative fiction, through folklore, opens the door to the history of Africa. The difference in pre-colonial and colonial culture and folklore can be examined in order to learn the effects of colonization on indigenous peoples and how the societies have adapted and changed.
- Indigenous African speculative fiction allows the reader to move beyond the Eurocentric colonization narrative of the West. It explores alternatives to industrialization.
- Positive representation of Black people that shows Black youth there is a place for them in the future.
- Folklore through indigenous African speculative fiction allows for the examination of certain aspects of Black culture devoid of any real or perceived teaching of Critical Race Theory.
- Africans who choose to attend American schools, work in the United States, seek asylum, and/or immigrate to the United States have often said they did not realize what it means to be "Black" until they came here. No one should be made to feel like an outsider, that they don't belong, based on nothing but how they look. Combating racism starts with education, and that education involves learning about different people and cultures in order to better understand and accept them.
- American folklore stories center around white people, such as Paul Bunion, Davey Crocket, and Calamity Jane. Black folklore stories, such as Br'er Rabbit have been appropriated and changed for white audiences. Indigenous African speculative fiction keeps African folklore intact and gives those in the diaspora a way to connect with their ancestors. This teaches Black youth early on that their people are unimportant to the history or the stories of America, that what is theirs will be appropriated by whites to use against them.
- More diversity is needed in literature in American schools. The books in K-12 that are taught are based on a white literary canon made of dead white authors including Shakespeare, Harper Lee, George Orwell, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and the Brontë Sisters All of these books are told by white authors, mostly men. No matter the quality of these books, they offer only one perspective, and are dated. Imagine being a young black student given mostly books by white authors where there are no Black characters, or worse, the Black characters are referred to over and over by racial slurs and abused physically, emotionally, mentally, and/or verbally. Black students need to see Black people portrayed in a positive light in media in ways that explore Black cultures.
- White students benefit as well from reading stories with characters who are different from them. It can broaden their world view, help combat racism and stereotypes, and teach then that there are other world views outside of white narrative pushed in America. This will go a long way into making students better global citizens.