Otherwise Futures Reimagined: Afro-Futurism as Liberation for Black Women—A Black Speculative Fiction

• In Event: Creative Social Justice Research: Pushing Methodological Boundaries—Performing Dissertation Research—Liberating Academic Writing

Abstract

To love Black women in the United States is a revolutionary act and to be a Black woman who loves is certain rebellion. I get to be both but not without some form of daily resistance either physically or psychologically. Formal and informal education in the United States perpetuates an environment that thrives on the belittling, silencing, and erasure of Black women. I believe the greatest robbery is that this system hinged on the degradation of Black women in particular convinces us that we are less deserving of love. Our educational institutions and programs are designed to strip us of identity or to claim that we have no identity worth pursuing. Through standardized history curricula and popular media representations, Black women are subconsciously taught that we have no legacy to embrace, protect, or discover; a convenient lie disguised as an absolute truth that reproduces itself in the psyche of Black women. This is why my work affirms that the breath of Black women is timely, critical, and my spiritual responsibility (Ani, 1994; Henry, 2005; Dillard, 2006).

Grounded in Black Feminist Thought, Afrofuturism, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history, I strive to center Black women’s experience of dispossession, deprivation, oppression, exploitation, violence, exclusion, persecution, and invasion through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning Black futures that stem from Afrodiasporic experiences. Through Black speculative fiction, I speculate how Black women’s historical narratives impact identity and healing and how practices of recovery lead Black women towards healthier relationships with their selves, their communities, and their ancestors. This research stems from my own self-love (Lorde, 1984) journey that illuminates how Black women’s historical narratives, wisdoms, and insights have saved and invigorated my spirit. For Black women to love themselves, they have to be in communion with healthy representations of our Blackness and our womanness (hooks, 2015, pp. 61-62).

Part of the challenges for my dissertation inquiry is to transgress traditional dissertation research paradigms to represent the emergence of Black women identities within technocultural assemblages, digital networks, software platforms, bio-technical augmentation to construct self-determined representations and alternative narratives and to invigorate Black women’s transformative visibilities and otherwise futures. My research engenders the disenfranchised Black women communities’ resistance to neoliberalism and privatization in education and their collective struggles for their children’s rights and access to liberative public education. My inquiry challenges educators, teachers, administers, and policy makers to illuminate Black women’s histories and stories by shattering dehumanizing categories, defying oppressive narratives, and inventing otherwise futures for liberation and freedom. This challenge helps create equitable and just opportunities and engender social justice curricular and learning environment for all in diverse schools, communities, neighborhoods, tribes, and societies in hard times. My dissertation work helps decolonize historical traditions of minimizing Black women and empower Black women to bolster sisterhoods and identities, which will make a difference in the lives of Black women, Black girls, and other Black people.

Author

• Khristian Cooper