Afrofuturism

Tropes and genres
Related tropes/genres	science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, magic realism, music, art, colonialism, postcolonialism, history, feminism, Africanfuturism
See also	African Speculative Fiction Society
Related articles on Fanlore.

Afrofuturism is often seen as a genre of science-fiction, speculative fiction, magic realism, and related forms of literary and creative arts. It is frequently interpreted as extending an African perspective on the future based upon past or present conditions: history, slavery, colonialism, feminism, African diasporas, Black Lives Matter, etc.

Yann-Cédric Agbodan-Aolio and the African Speculative Fiction Society expand this definition:

Afrofuturism is not a subgenre of science fiction but an artistic current that covers all genres of the imaginary.

Janelle Monáe explains that Afrofuturism is:

… a cultural movement that pulls from elements of science fiction, magical realism, speculative fiction and African history. Undergirding this movement is a longing to create a more just world.

Aissa Dearing notes:

Rather than considering time on a linear scale, Afrofuturist artists understand it as a deep entanglement of multiple pasts, presents, and futures opening the door for possibilities of different kinds of stories, relations, politics, and technologies.

Zambian author Mbozi Haimbe explains some of the broad cultural context within Afrofuturism:

We all ─ those who create African art be it via literature, visual and performing arts or any other creative media ─ have a role to play in Africa’s narrative. Tell a different story, show a different face of Africa, and challenge outdated perceptions. A better standard of living for all is always a worthwhile pursuit, but we equally need to address our identity and what it means to be an African, whether in the diaspora or on the continent... My particular interest is Afrofuturism with an emphasis on Africa either as the primary or secondary setting, and African protagonists...

Afrofuturism Timeline

1924: Ferdinand Berthoud writes, The Man Who Banished Himself.

1931: George Schulyer writes, Black No More

1994: Mark Dery writes "Black to the Future" which popularises the term and concept of Afrofuturism:

“The notion of Afrofuturism gives rise to a troubling antinomy: can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures? - Mark Dery, 1994, p. 180.

2019: Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor challenges the scope of Afrofuturism as a diaspora genre, and proposes Africanfuturism as a more authentic and global African perspective:

Africanfuturism is similar to “afrofuturism” in the way that blacks on the continent and in the Black Diaspora are all connected by blood, spirit, history and future. The difference is that africanfuturism is specifically and more directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches into the Black Diaspora, and it does not privilege or center the West.

2024 (?): Yann-Cédric Agbodan-Aolio contextualises the history of Afrofuturism:

Just as there are several Africans (composed of several countries, themselves made up of several ethnic groups...), there are several Afrofuturisms who have met in the time and space, and they are the expression of the astonishing diversity of the African people and its descendants, of course, but also of the diversity of human people simply.

The afrofuturism of yesterday that was born in United States in the era of space conquest is not the afrofuturism of today that is more open to the world and it is to bet that the afrofuturism of tomorrow will be just as different.

The first was thus North American and was a response of the blacks in reaction to the atmosphere of a very cleaved American society and centered on the white population of the 60’s-70’s. The blacks of this era, who do not know theirs exact roots, want to create a prestige identity to exalt just like the other ethnic groups represented in the USA. For some, this goes through the return to the sources, that is to say Africa: It is the Negritude and africanity. For others, it goes through the flight to the Stars: It's the afrofuturism.

The second belongs to all Africans and African descent and is turned to the world. In this sense, is Afrofuturist anyone Consents to marry history, values, codes… of this continent and transpose them into a speculative world. This is why the Afrofuturists are no longer necessarily African or Afro-descendants.

The third, at the whim of globalisation, of evolutions and revolutions, will have transformed into something that we cannot foresee.

See Also

• John Calvert, Janelle Monáe: A New Pioneer of Afrofuturism, The Quietus, 2 September 2010.
• Dan Hassler-Forest, Janelle Monáe's Queer Afrofuturism, Rutgers University Press, 2022 (webpage).
• What is Afrofuturism?, Carneades.org, 27 March 2023 (YouTube).
• Lauren Schatzman, A genre that celebrates Black futures is getting its due, Lauren Schatzman, NBC News.
• What is Afrofuturism?, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 May 2023.