On Afrofuturism: A Personal Exploration of Creative Avenues Towards African Evolution

As Black History Month comes to an end, reflections on blackness seem to quietly dwindle away from the busy media landscape like a blip on a screen. On college campuses, at that time of spring semester, the conferences, community spaces, and cyber posts devoted to placing a magnifying glass on the impassioned whirlwind that is black history across the centuries are all purposed to be educative, to be emboldening, and to reinforce a sense of webbed collectivity uniquely fashioned out of suffering, a suffering whose essence exerts, in equilibrium, a depth of far-reaching strength, endlessly melding interconnectedness as though steel. This month-long work, an effort of intense and concentrated productivity in acknowledging achievements, is much needed, that I’ll say without a doubt. Yet in tandem, one’s existence can become sheltered by a reminiscent lens perpetually looking back, that is even before, naturally, the engagement itself dies down.

February is intrinsically linked to a commemoration of the past, a thankful, and sorrowful love letter to what blackness has meant to those who embodied its preceding meanings. March was an opportunity I took to look towards the future, a personal endeavor to explore what blackness can mean, and perhaps the research of some radiant course deviation. To approach blackness in a way that is less conducive to its limitations, but rather, under the shining armor of technology, to approach race as an adaptable device. If interconnectedness can be melded, so can the shape of our identities, the very substance that connects us. To redefine the African identity towards a more desired awareness, begins by bringing to the forefront the forceful separation that occurred initially at the psychological level, between body and soul, during the process of a continental socio-political imperialism. This fundamental division of experience, although tragic, is all the more valuable, considering the analytic window it offers into humanity. And beautifully so, the transcendence of this cognitive dissonance has strong roots to be found within this multidisciplinary movement. I inquired Smaran Dayal, an Assistant Professor of Literature at Stevens Institute of Technology, who conducts research on literary Afrofuturism, about the meaning of the term, among other questions about its resonance. 

How do you define Afrofuturism?

I understand Afrofuturism, following scholars such as Mark Dery, the American cultural critic (and former NYU Journalism professor) who coined the term, and the British writer and filmmaker Kodwo Eshun, as an African diasporic cultural genre that uses ideas of the future, of technology (both real and speculative), and—and this is the part that sometimes gets left out—of history and the past to imagine alternatives to the present. It does this not just as science fiction in general might, but from the specific vantage point of the African diaspora and its histories in the Caribbean and the Americas. In some definitions, continental African perspectives are also part of what’s understood as Afrofuturism, but increasingly, African speculative fiction, art, and media are being referred to as “Africanfuturism,” following the Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor’s coinage of that term. I think there’s a huge range of media and literature that can be considered Afrofuturist, going from the artist Alisha B. Wormsley’s succinct but powerful artwork, “The Last Billboard,” which was installed in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of East Liberty in 2017, and simply reads “There are Black people in the future,” to the dense and philosophical literary fiction of Samuel R. Delany or the Black Panther comic books and movies. I think something that’s important to consider when speaking of Afrofuturism as opposed to simply, say, Black science fiction is that the former encompasses a wide range of mediums and espouses a specifically political project tied to Black liberation, antiracism, and anticolonialism. Rather than have the final word on what constitutes Afrofuturism, especially as a South Asian scholar of the genre, I would suggest your readers look up the work of writers and scholars, such as the two mentioned above, as well as Ytasha Womack, Isiah Lavender III, Reynaldo Anderson, and Lisa Yaszek, and Alex Zamalin.

Afrofuturism restructures this vision of the self as being defined autonomously, and outside of the mold of the dominant cultural framework frequently assumed to be Western intellectual tradition. In the book Provincializing Europe, a poignant connection Dipesh Chakrabarty makes in his argument, is between violence and idealism. In actualization, this bond “plays a decisive role in the establishment of meaning, in the creation of truth regimes, in deciding, as it were, whose and which ‘universal’ wins.” The advantage of political violence guarding theoretical assertions is often conveniently diminished, despite it forging the path for the avenues of knowledge that are subsequently explored, determining the flow, and thus direction of thoughts worth pursuing. Such restrictions also manifest within the creative field, as it pertains to the most basic production of ideas based on the self, as explained here by Dayal. 

How do you qualify the role of the imagination in the process of defining cultural identity? 

I think imagination is absolutely central to the process of defining cultural identity. Who we are—and understand ourselves to be—is entirely dependent on the stories we tell about our past, present, and possible futures. And this is not just true of Afrofuturism and the African diaspora, but equally of national identities, gender and sexual identities, and so on. For instance, a lot has been written about how the novel form has been crucial to the development of postcolonial national identities in India, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America after they achieved independence from European colonial powers and sought to define themselves anew. Part of that process is re-imagining their pasts and projecting their identities into the future. Unfortunately, we have also seen how this process of imagination can be hijacked by ultra-nationalist and exclusionary forces. But either way, imagination is a powerful force when it comes to sustaining our cultural identities and sense of belonging to larger collectives.

Temporality, as described above, is highly relevant to the discussion of cultural identity, as it determines the mode in which we can mentally configure the possibilities of potential development. I will supplement this understanding with a definition given by NYU alumn and fashion director Munachi Ogsebu. He describes the Afrofuturism movement as “a reimagining of blackness: a re-awakening of the past, a recontextualisation of the present, and a new conceptualisation of the future.” In that way, blackness is encountered in a tripartite temporal medium, no longer constrained to a one-dimensional conception of itself. Post-colonial thought, within the umbrella of critical race theory, should aim at furthering this conception as broadly as it can, as this in turn will allow for space for a more united African consciousness to ascend. Afrofuturism embraces the tension between the undeniable effects of colonialism and the purity that was disparaged in our vast ancestral and cultural wealth, whose powerful truths are sought out in the idea of reclaiming. Essentially tied to science fiction, and based in techno culture, this movement equals a new wave of innovation, an arcane fiber of nativism which rejects the assumption of neutrality, and places imagination at its core, in the hope of creating a brighter tomorrow. 

Is there a way to create an Africa that is fully reliant upon itself? 

Yes, creating a thriving and fully independent Africa is something that I believe cultural producers should continue imagining in their art, literature, and films, but it’s also something that needs to be brought about through activism and policy. I would encourage your readers to look into the work of organizations such as the UndocuBlack Network, but also the myriad efforts to bring attention to the many crises on the continent from Sudan to Congo to Western Sahara, and the role that European and American economic and political interests play in shaping what happens on the continent. We have so much to learn from both Civil Rights activists of the 20th century, as well anticolonial leaders, such as Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Walter Rodney, Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and many others. To tie this question back to Afrofuturism, isn’t it interesting that Queen Ramonda’s father name is Lumumba (after the Congolese leader) and T’Challa’s son’s Haitian name is Toussaint (after the leader of the Haitian revolution Toussaint Louverture)? 

The true beauty of a thriving Africa is a dream which inexhaustibly guides those who carry it. I believe it is necessary for people of African descent, of artists especially, to indulge and spread the narratives which portray the full scope of our identity, and that allow for not only freedom, but metamorphosis. That is, so that one day, this African dream can become increasingly real. The project of revolutionizing Africa has long been one that is considered to be nothing more than mythical, completely unrooted in reality, even simply in its utterance. But during this month of March, I have been made aware of the power of creativity and the relevance of the abstract world to invent the practical one. Afrofuturism is a movement which views that the path towards action starts in the mind.

Read Also: Code Red: Africa’s Health Workforce Crisis – A Looming Catastrophe Demanding Urgent Action