9 August 2020

Adivasi Futurismimage- screenshot from ongoing film project Ningwasum

Subash Thebe Limbu

Homagetomemoriesyouwillcreate.

It was in second year of my MFA (late 2015 to mid 2016) I began toexperimentwithsoundandmusicandperformancesrelatedtoit.Beforethat, apart frommaking videos, installaGons and performaGveworks, Imostly painted. I used to record sounds of protest even beforeexperimenGngwithsoundart,soIstartedusingthoserecordings.Then,Ialso started using recordings I made by reading passages from thewriter’sworkIdiscoveredaroundthesameGme,OctaviaE.Butler.

There’snothingnewunderthesun,buttherearenewsuns.

-OctaviaE.Butler(1998).“ParableoftheTalents”,p.432

Octavia Butler’s work was different from science ficGon I was familiarwith like Asimov, Clarke, Herbert or mainstream space wars saga withlaser-toGng spaceships. A futurisGcworld as told by blackwriter or saypeople of colour, was very refreshing and a great window to see andimagine future scenarios and redefine my own pracGce. Storytelling,indigeneity, my love of science and science ficGon, it all needed tosomehowcomeinaplaceandspace.AsanindigenousarGstinterestedinsocio-poliGcalissues,Ialwayswantedtoworkonindigeneitybutwasnotsureonwaystoapproachit.Octavia’sstorytellinginspiredmetoimagineand speculate my own indigeneity in future Gmelines. Although I wasaware of Afrofuturism, it was Octavia Butler whose wriGngs mademeappreciateitmuchmorethanIdidearlierandneedlesstosaymycurrentpracGceowesagreatdealtoAfrofuturism.“Afrofuturism is an intersecLon of imaginaLon, technology, the future,and liberaLon,”(Womack, 2013) writes Ytasha L. Womack, an author,filmmakerandafrofuturists, inherbook“AFROFUTURISM,TheWorldofBlackSci-FiandFantasyCulture”ThisintersecGonality,Ithinkwasaplaceandspace Iwas looking for to furthermypracGce.Sheadds,“Whetherthrough literature, visual arts, music, or grassroots organizing,AfrofuturistsredefinecultureandnoLonsofblacknessfortodayandthefuture. Both an arLsLc aestheLc and a framework for criLcal theory,Afrofuturism combines elements of science ficLon, historical ficLon,speculaLveficLon,fantasy,Afrocentricity,andmagicrealismwithnon-

Westernbeliefs. Insomecases, it’sa total reenvisioningof thepastandspeculaLonaboutthefuturerifewithculturalcriLques.”(Womack,2013)

I began incorporaGng science ficGon with indigenous lens on myartworks, mainly digital art and sound works- using my indigenousscripts, songs and symbols. I even designed a mothership (illustratedabove)basedonSilamsakma,aritualisGcobjectcommonlyusedandalsounanimously accepted as a symbol of idenGty among our indigenousYakthung (Limbu) NaGonaliGes in Nepal. Without knowing, I wastouching upon another movement of creaGve pracGce that draws onAfrofuturism(Gaertner,2015).Itdidnottakelongbutitwasonlylater,IcannotremembertheexactGme,IcameacrossIndigenousFuturismandgot enchanted straight away. Anishinaabe professor Grace Dillon,professor in the Indigenous NaGons Studies Program at Portland StateUniversity,coinedthetermIndigenousFuturismin2001(Gaertner,2015).She is also the editor of one of the most important books on themovement, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous ScienceFicLon.(2012)

In UnreservedradiointerviewwithRosannaDeerchild, GracedescribesIndigenous Futurism as “a area where Indigenous writers can createthought experiment in scienLfic sense and centre Indigenous peoplewithinthatworld,asHelenHaig-BrownwhoisfromtheTsilhqot'inNaLonandhascreatedthefilm?E?anx(TheCave)inherownlanguage,shehascalledittakingtheficLonoutofscienceficLonandintheprocessofthatsharing the values and ethics that connected to science, which isceremony, singing, dancing, all forms of art alongwith growing plants,developingmedicines, creaLng space rockets.” (From growingmedicinetospacerockets:WhatisIndigenousfuturism?|CBCRadio,2020).

Indigenous Futurism gives Indigenous writers, arGsts, filmmakers andothercreaGvepracGGonerstoimagineandcarryoutthoughtexperimentandseethemselvesinthefuturepracGcingIndigenousknowledge,ideasalong with science and technology. Like Afrofuturism, it shias thenarraGvefromcolonised,oppressedandmarginalisedtorepresentaGon,progressandliberaGon,fromtokenismtoleadingvoices,from‘vanishingraces’tohyper-advancednaGons.

IndigenousFuturismhasstrongrootsandpresenceinNorthAmericaandis expanding to many Indigenous NaGons around the world. MostIndigenouspeoplearoundtheworld,forexample,likeusinNepalsharessimilar history of colonisaGon, oppression, dispossession andmarginalisaGon, but having said that I am not saying indigeneity is amonolith.And,unlikeinNorthAmerica,wedonothavemuchhistorytodrawfromFuturisminartandliteratureletaloneinindigenouscontextinour part of the world, so as an indigenous arGst imagining futures,IndigenousFuturismappealedtomeandIfounditveryinspiring.

IamcomfortabletocallmysfpracGceas IndigenousFuturism,(infact Ihavealreadybeenusingthistermwhenpeopleareconfusedanddonotknow what to make of my indigenous sci-fi), but I also believe that itwould make the movement rich and vibrant if we contribute anotherdimension to it. So, paying sincere homage to Afrofuturism andIndigenousFuturism,IhaverecentlystartedtocallmypracGceregardingindigeneitywith science, speculaGve ficGon, fantasy and sf elements asAdivasiFuturism,notasaseparateenGtybutnurturedandfacilitatedbyAfrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism. Adivasi is a Nepalese word forindigenousbutalsowidelyusedascollecGvetermforindigenouspeoplein Indian sub-conGnent. Among many names, we mostly use AdivasiJanajaL (Indigenous NaGonaliGes) for ourselves in Nepal. So, for me,Adivasi Futurism could be a space where Adivasi arGsts, writers,musicians and filmmakers can imagine and speculate future scenariosfromtheirperspecGvewhere theyhaveagency, technology, sovereigntyandalsotheirindigenousknowledge,culture,ethicsandstorytellingsGllintact,ofcoursewithupgradedcodes.ItcouldbeanintersecGon,wherefutures without - or dealing on ways to de-link and dismantle -brahminicalpatriarchalcasteismandracismthathasbeendetrimentaltoAdivasis,Dalits,Madhesis,womenandqueerpeopleintheregion,canbeimagined.

Acknowledging the struggles, solidarity and legacy of friends and alliesfromthesub-conGnentandbeyond,AdivasiFuturismcouldbeadomainforimaginingfuturesthatwecurrentlyassumeasimpossible.WhenIsayfriendsandallies,ImeanDalitsandMadhesisofwhatiscurrentlyknownasNepal,andblackandindigenouspeoplearoundtheIksaty*.Also,likeYtashasays, “anysci-fi fan, comicbookgeek, fantasy reader,Trekker,orsciencefairwinnerwhoeverwonderedwhyblackpeopleareminimisedinpop culture depicLons of the future, conspicuously absent from thehistoryofscience,ormarginalisedintherosterofpastinventorsandthenactually set out to do something about it could arguably qualify as anAfrofuturist as well.” (Womack, 2013), I also argue that, any sci-fi fan,reader,writersandarGstacGvelytryingtocarveaspaceforAdivasisandtheirallies co-exisGngonanequalfooGng,self-determinaGon,andwithanagencyonscienceandtechnologyinthefuturecouldpossiblyqualifyasanAdivasiFuturist.

Amidst thecurrentnaGonstates’ capitalistneoliberalworldviewwhereindigenouspeople arewrongly seenas anobstacle toprogress,wearemaking our voices heard more louder in recent decades, may it be inDakota, Amazon, Kathmandu or in my Yakthung territories, we arechallengingtheWesternideaof‘development’.InGmeslikethese,spaceslikeAdivasiFuturismcouldbeaportaltore-viewandre-defineprogress,de-link the ideaof naGon states and contrary to colonialist narraGveofindigenous people as ‘primiGve’, it could be a space to re-imagineourselvesasnotonly thestorytellersof thepastbutalsoascreatorsofinterplanetaryandinterstellarcivilisaGonofthefuture.

References

Butler, O., 1998. Parable Of The Talents. New York / Toronto: A Seven Stories Press, p.432.

CBC. 2020. From Growing Medicine To Space Rockets: What Is Indigenous Futurism? | CBC Radio. [online] Available at: <https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/looking-towards-the-future-indigenous-futurism-in-literature-music-film-and-fashion-1.5036479/from-growing-medicine-to-space-rockets-what-is-indigenous-futurism-1.5036480> [Accessed 1 August 2020].

Dillon, G., 2012.  Walking The Clouds: An Anthology Of Indigenous Science Fiction. Tuscon: The University of Arizona Press.

Gaertner, D., 2015. “What’S A Story Like You Doing In A Place Like This?”: Cyberspace And Indigenous Futurism. [online] Novel Alliances. Available at: <https://novelalliances.com/2015/03/23/whats-a-story-like-you-doing-in-a-place-like-this-cyberspace-and-indigenous-futurism-in-neal-stephensons-snow-crash/#_ftn1> [Accessed 1 August 2020].

Womack, Y., 2013.  Afrofuturism : The World Of Black Sci-Fi And Fantasy Culture. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, p.9.

*Iksaty-fromIksa(earth,landinYakthung)andcity;aconceptofearthasacity.

Inthefuture,Adivasis,Dalits,Madhesis, Indigenous,Blacksandallcurrentlymarginalised people will have formed constellaLon of knowledge, science,and culture connected by empathy, kinship and shared interest of cosmicexploraLon. The current naLon states that were built on foundaLons likegreedandexploitaLonwillgivewaytosomethingnewandjust.Andshouldthere be any remnants of colonial, brahminical, racial, patriarchal andcapitalisLcretrogradingenLLes,theywillbemetwithappropriateresponses.-“Miksam’sDream”,p.227