Jan 28
Africanfuturism: What is it and What are the Material Implications for the African Continent?
Over the past couple of months, I have been contemplating about the focus of my dissertation. My initial thought was to explore new African feminist novels, plays, novellas, etc. But, after reviewing existing scholarship on these genres, it occurred to me that Adichie’s works were the most recent from Africa that examined gender-related issues. Adichie is undoubtedly a brilliant author, but her works appeared to have been over-researched. This discovery led me to continue my search for a topic/issue/ author. I then stumbled upon Okorafor’s novel, Lagoon in an anthropology class I took. It was after reading this novel, that I encountered the term — Africanfuturism.
According to the author, Africanfuturism is “a sub-category of science fiction…that is rooted in African culture”. Africanfuturism deals with “visions of the future” centering black people from Africa and is written by Africans from Africa. Like any futurist work, Africanfuturism projects into the future, but it also looks to the past to either reimagine, reclaim, revise those past histories. Like Octavia Butler does, Okorafor tells stories about embodied Others (female, minority groups) in the African society. That is, she demonstrates in her novels, what it means to be an African woman, in a patriarchal society. However, unlike Butler’s stories, Okorafor occasionally addresses political issues regarding tribalism and its attendant consequences. Okorafor creates magical worlds where science and juju co-exist, in the way Nisi Shawl clamors for in her article titled “Ifa: Reverence, Science, and Social Technology”. Okorafor has tenaciously taken up every opportunity she gets to tell stories that directly affect Africans. Her most recent novel Noor addresses the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria. Also, she wrote a story on the #EndSARS protest in the New Marvel collection. Her older work Who Fears Death speaks to weaponized rape of women in Sudan. Unfortunately, for some reason, Africanfuturism is not yet receiving the attention it should be getting, since critics still refer to her as an “Afrofuturist”.
Although Okorafor coined the term, there are numerous other works by African authors that can be categorized as Africanfuturist. A few of them include Rosewater by Tade Thompson, Africanfuturism: An Anthology Edited by Wale Talabi, The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden, Incomplete Solutions by Wole Talabi, Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, David Mogo Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa, The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell, Triangulum by Masande Ntshanga, A Killing in The Sun by Dilman Dila, Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora. As I explore this genre, my goal is to chart an exhaustive list of Africanfuturist works (short stories, novels, novellas, poems, films) and write about them through reviews or discuss them in my dissertation.
Beyond the fact that my dissertation will explore the genre, I have a particular interest in Africanfuturism because of the potentiality of its material effects on the African continent. Many academic critics have written about the material effects of Afrofuturism in America. I believe that Africanfuturism can also ‘save’ Africa. For starters, it is no coincidence that Africa is fast becoming a site for web developers. Young Nigerian boys and girls have created apps and robots to perform mundane and complicated tasks. In 2018, Save a Soul Team, a group of young Nigerian girls won a Silicon Valley Award for creating an app that detects fake medication. Also, in 2019, Fathia Abdullahi, a 12-year-old Nigerian girl, created a cloth folding robot to help with her chores. These are some of the real-life technological innovations currently occurring in Nigeria. With Africanfuturism, the possibilities are endless. Africanfuturism must move beyond literature. Like Afrofuturism, it must become a cultural aesthetic that manifests in every aspect of the African society.
