Directions and Diversions
in Visual Anthropology            
  1. Introduction
  2. Objects of Affect
  3. The Burden of Representation
  4. Uncertain Evidence
  5. Digital Media Infrastructure

  6. Collaboration
  7. Sovereign Vision(s)
  8. Opacity and Refusal
  9. Alter-Futurisms
  10. Visual Anthropology beyond the Visual

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CC BY-NC-SA 2024 Isaac Marrero Guillamón

9. Alter-futurisms


Reclaiming the future has been an act of insurgence and radical politics for collectives traditionally excluded from mainstream imaginations of the yet-to-come. This session explores Indigenous- and Afro-Futurist work and argues they constitute an important source of inspiration for another visual anthropology, one which is invested in the creation of new conditions of possibility.

  • Required reading/watching:
  • Eshun, Kodwo. 2003. “Further Considerations on Afrofuturism.” CR The New Centennial Review 3 (2): 287–302.
  • Lempert, William. 2018. ‘Indigenous Media Futures: An Introduction’. Cultural Anthropology 33 (2): 173–79. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca33.2.01.

Part 1/2 (18’): indigenous futurism and afrofuturism; the anthropology of the future; speculative fiction. 



Activities: 
Explore Skawennati’s Time Traveller project: https://www.timetravellertm.com/
Watch Theo Jean Cuthand’s Reclamation (13 min): available here. 

Part 2/2 (11’): afrofuturism in theory and in popular culture; emancipatory futures and worldbuilding. 



  • Activity: watch Martine Syms’ The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto (2016, 56 min): https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/episodes/the-mundane-afrofuturist-manifesto.

  • Further readings:
  • Biddle, Jennifer L., and Tess Lea. 2018. ‘Hyperrealism and Other Indigenous Forms of “Faking It with the Truth”’. Visual Anthropology Review 34 (1): 5–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12148.
  • Danowski, Déborah, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. 2017. The Ends of the World. Cambridge, MA: Polity. 
  • Dillon, Grace, ed. 2012. Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction. University of Arizona Press. 
  • Dowell, Kristin L. 2018. “Digital Sutures: Experimental Stop-Motion Animation as Future Horizon of Indigenous Cinema.” Cultural Anthropology 33 (2): 189–201. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca33.2.03.
  • Lempert, William. 2014. ‘Decolonizing Encounters of the Third Kind: Alternative Futuring in Native Science Fiction Film’. Visual Anthropology Review 30 (2): 164–176.
  • Lambert, Léopold. 2019. “Futurisms: Introduction.” The Funambulist Magazine, junio 28. https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/24-futurisms/futurisms-introduction-leopold-lambert. 
  • Medak-Saltzman, Danika. 2017. ‘Coming to You from the Indigenous Future: Native Women, Speculative Film Shorts, and the Art of the Possible’. Studies in American Indian Literatures 29 (1): 139–71.
  • Nyong’o, Tavia. 2018. Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life. New York: NYU Press. 
  • Nyong’o, Tavia. 2014. “Unburdening Representation.” The Black Scholar 44 (2): 70–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2014.11413689. 
  • Pittman, Alex. 2020. “Introduction: Can the Subaltern Fabulate? – Social Text.” Social Text Journal - Periscope. 2020. https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_article/introduction-can-the-subaltern-fabulate/.
  • Rifkin, Mark. 2019. Fictions of Land and Flesh: Blackness, Indigeneity, Speculation. Durham: Duke University Press Books.
  • Wilson, Daniel H. 2011. Robopocalypse. Simon and Schuster.  
  • Womack, Ytasha L. 2013. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.  

  • Further resources:
  • Black Quantum Futurism. https://www.blackquantumfuturism.com/
  • Ytasha Womack, Afrofuturism Imagination and Humanity. Presentation at the Sonic Arts Festival, 2017.