Histofuturism and Qualitative Research: Lessons from Octavia Butler (Poster 9)

• In Event: Imagining Black Worlds: Emphasizing Black Methodologies in Reparative Educational Inquiry

Abstract

In 1981, Octavia Butler stated the following: “A HistoFuturist is my invention. An historian who extrapolates from the Human past and present as well as the technological past and present.” In this description, she articulated an inquiry stance that blends the process of looking forward and backward, of turning toward the future without fleeing the past, of anticipating and remembering. Her practice, while not explicitly described as a methodological process, offers opportunities for scholars to find connection between history and futurity, enabling them to go back and fetch the important people, places, and stories from the past, analyze the various intricacies of the present, and take what is learned to envision and/or create more inclusive futures. Considering the qualitative possibility of Butler’s histofuturist vision alongside her decision to leave histofuturism as a vague analytic approach, we analyzed Octavia Butler’s novels, Parable of the Sower and Kindred, alongside interviews about her researching and writing process to highlight how she illustrates this process through her verbal and written words. Across Butler’s texts, we found the following:
1. An engagement with the concept of Sankofa: recognizing and reclaiming historical narratives that have been overlooked or suppressed, thereby enriching contemporary understanding and future possibilities.
2. A refusal of disciplinary boundaries: centralizing an openness to interdisciplinary approaches which allows for the incorporation of various methods and perspectives and fosters a more holistic and nuanced understanding of people and places.
3. A commitment to extrapolation: analyzing present conditions and historical trajectories to project current trends into the future.
Through these techniques, she offers Black scholars a means to integrate historical consciousness with future-oriented thinking. Her histofuturist approach provides a framework for engaging in research that is not only reflective and critical, but also visionary and transformative, a necessary model to heal historical wounds and build a more just and inclusive future in education.

Authors

• Stephanie R. Toliver, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Alexandria Smith, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign