Geographies of African Futures

Matthew Eatough, Irikidzayi Manase

Abstract


If recent work in African literature is any indication, the future may be a more present concern across the continent than at any point since the independence movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Following the critical and commercial success of Nigerian-American Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death (2011) and South African Lauren Beukes’s Zoo City (2011), speculative fiction has entrenched itself as one of the most vibrant, innovative, and substantial bodies of work within the wider field of African fiction. The essays contained in this special issue investigate how such works of speculative fiction have become one of the main vehicles for the elaboration of new literary geographies. Faced with the uncertainties of the present neoliberal conjuncture and with emergent challenges to it, works of speculative fiction can construct imaginative templates to serve as cognitive maps for new, potentially more equitable forms of social organization.

Keywords


science fiction; African literature; futurology; strategic planning; infrastructure; alien

Full Text:

PDF

References


Anderson, J. and Saunders, A. (2015) ‘Introduction: Relational Literary Geographies: Co-Producing Page and Place.’ Literary Geographies, 1(2), pp. 115-119.

Berlin, J. and Owoyele, B. ‘African Futures.’ [Online] [Accessed 10 October 2022] https://www.african-futures.com

Brosseau, M (2017) ‘In, of, out, with, and through: New Perspectives in Literary Geography.’ In Tally, R.T. Jr. (ed) The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 9-27.

Cowen, D. (2014) The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping Violence in Global Trade. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Foucault, M. (1986) ‘Of Other Spaces.’ Diacritics, 16(1), pp. 22-27.

Goldtsone, B. and Obarrio, J. (2016) ‘Introduction: Untimely Africa?’ In Goldtsone, B. and Obarrio, J. (eds) African Futures: Essays on Crisis, Emergence, and Possibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-20.

Hones, S. (2008) ‘Text as It Happens: Literary Geography.’ Geography Compass, 2(5), pp. 1301-1317.

Hones, S. (2018) ‘Literary Geography and Spatial Literary Studies.’ Literary Geographies, 4 (2), pp. 146-149.

Institute for Security Studies. ‘African Futures.’ [Online] [Accessed 10 October 2022] https://futures.issafrica.org

Jameson, F. (2007) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London and New York: Verso.

Kneale, J. and Kitchin, R. (2002) ‘Lost in Space.’ In Kitchin, R. and Kneale, J. (eds) Lost in Space: Geographies of Science Fiction. London: Continuum, pp. 1-16.

Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.

Martin, J.V. and Sneegas, G. (2020) ‘Critical Worldbuilding: Toward a Geographical Engagement with Imagined Worlds.’ Literary Geographies, 6(1), pp. 15-23.

Simone, A. (2004) For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities. Durham: Duke University Press.

Suvin, D. (1979) Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Tally, R.T. Jr. (2017) ‘Introduction: The Reassertion of Space in Literary Studies.’ In Tally, R.T. Jr. (ed) The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1-6.

Tally, R.T. Jr. (2020) ‘Spatial Literary Studies.’ Literary Geographies, 6(1), pp. 1-4.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2022 Matthew Eatough, Irikidzayi Manase