Decolonizing Imaginaries and Futurities: Imagining Alternative Nows and Envisioning Possibilities for Asian Diasporas in Transnational Ethnoscapes

• In Event: Dismantling Colonization: Reclaiming Asian Diaspora Experience as Curriculum Knowledge

Abstract

Inspired by Afrofuturism (Anderson & Jones, 2016; Dery, 1994; Gipson, 2019; Jackson & Moody-Freeman, 2011; Nelson, 2002; Womack, 2013), Indigenous Futurism (Dillon, 2012; also de Ramírez & Lucer, 2009; Lempert, 2014, 2018; Medak-Saltzman, 2017), and diasporic imaginary (Axel, 2002; Mishra, 1996); and global imaginary (Steger, 2008), the major objective for this paper is to conceptualize Asian diaspora imaginaries and futurities as a multicultural/multilingual/multiracial/multiethnic aesthetic and philosophy of science/history to decolonize imaginaries and futurities through technoculture, science fiction, multimedia, and arts, representing a multiplicity of temporalities, localities, traditions, identities, and subjectivities engendered by shared Asian diasporic experiences, multiple senses of belonging, and multiple processes of becoming (Antonsich, 2010) in transnational ethnoscapes (Appadurai, 1996).
The cartographies of decolonizing imaginaries and futurities can be traced to such works on decolonization as Asia as method (Chen, 2010), AsianCrit (Chang, 1993; Iftikar & Museu, 2018; Museus & Iftikar, 2013; also An, 2016, 2017a, 2017b; Kim & Hsieh, 2022; Liu, 2009; Park & Liu, 2014; Poon & Segoshi, 2018; Rodríguez, 2018, 2019; Rodríguez & Kim, 2018, 2019), decolonizing methodologies and Indigenous and decolonizing studies in education (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999/2012; Tuhiwai Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2019; also Chilisa, 2012; Kovach, 2009/2012; Oliveira & Wright, 2016), decolonizing educational research (Patel, 2016), decolonizing research/indigenous storywork as methodology (Archibald, 2000; Archibald, Xiiem, Lee-Morgan, & Santolo, 2019), testimonios, theory in the flesh, and third world women’s writing as self-preservation and revolution (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1981/1983), creative/critical perspectives by women of color (Anzaldúa, 1987, 1990), critical race/LatCrit methodology and counter-storytelling (Delgado, 1989; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001, 2002, 2009; Yosso, 2006), and methodology of the oppressed (Sandoval, 2000).
In this decolonizing research project, data and evidence consist of primary sources such as music, visual and performing arts, literature, film, news articles, media reports, and academic scholarship decolonizing imaginaries and futurities and representing Asian diaspora voices, histories, and experiences. Such decolonized imaginaries and futurities shatter white supremacy, orientalism, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and settler colonialism that embolden hatred of the difference and existence of Asian diasporas and other minoritized communities and exhilarate Asian diasporic consciousness that educates hope, evokes different histories and futures, and invigorates radical love that we could find strength, faith, and humility to join in common struggles and build multiracial and multiethnic solidarity across differences to fight against all forms of oppression.
Such imaginaries and futurities inspire us to invent creative strategies to teach, research, and live towards freedom and social justice in troubling times and invigorate “imagined communities” (Bhabha, 1994, p. 5) where educational workers with shared experience work together as allies, take to heart the predicaments of the oppressed, and develop ideas, languages, and strategies to enact humanizing educational and social change that foster equity, emancipation, and social justice to heal the soul of humanity and planet with “shared principles and visions” for “desirable collective futures” in “a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty, and fragility” (UNESCO, 2020, pp. 2-5).

Author

• Ming Fang He, Georgia Southern University