The Expanse Part 4: The Presence of Flourishing Futures in Indigenous Stories of Apocalypse
Indigenous stories about apocalypse don’t necessarily shy away from the horror of cataclysm or collapse, but include visions for decolonized futures of sovereignty, connectivity, and belonging.
A recording of this essay will be available shortly!
In her essay, Imagining Indigenous Futurisms, from Walking the Clouds, An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, Grace Dillon states that it’s commonly understood how the Native Apocalypse has already taken place. Therefore, many Indigenous futurisms propose optimistic futures through a reversal of circumstances in which Natives either win, or are centered in the narrative.1 She cites Lawrence Gross (Anishinaabe) who talks about Anishinaabe culture as recovering from a “post apocalypse syndrome” and describes apocalypse as being a state of imbalance, implying a state of extremes; but also indicating the possibility to find a middle ground and balance that leads to resistance and survival. Native storytelling of the apocalypse shows contemporary and historical truths, scars, and traumas; but towards offering a path to healing and recovery, and sovereignty embedded within self-determination.2
Globally, Indigenous people have already experienced the end of the world. In the essay I’ve been working from as a point of departure, Indigenous Futures and Sovereign Romanticisms, Belonging to a Place in Time, Hannah Donnelly makes it clear that the end of Western civilization isn't relevant to Indigenous futures—the end of the settler’s world is not the end of the Indigenous world3—and the second invasion or apocalypse is only the second to Indigenous People. For settlers, it is the first.4 So the end to settler occupation in the second invasion story potentially opens up something more of a utopia5, where Indigenous People survive into the future without dissolving or assimilating into white supremacist culture, ie, the colonial body; projecting Indigenous life into the future through imagining their descendants.6 Indigenous futures don’t necessarily resolve conflicts with settlers, who don’t necessarily disappear; but they can become alternatives to reconciliation with an emphasis on Indigenous knowledge and ways of being.7 Perhaps Indigenous ways of life, relationality, and relationships can shift the nature or the expectation of healing to move past simple forgiveness, into imagined futures where Indigenous Peoples experience a return to ancestral lands and full sovereignty.8
Offering Indigenous futures as told through a queer lens in Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, editor Joshua Whitehead asks the question of what it means to be Two-Spirit during the apocalypse.9 Like Hannah Donnelly and Grace Dillon, Whitehead reminds us that the apocalypse has been endured by Indigenous Peoples throughout the world in the wake of colonization, in history and in present-day. Queering the apocalypse towards the utopian, Whitehead showcases stories by Two-Spirit, queer, trans, and nonbinary authors who imagine ways of not just surviving, but thriving to flourish into being joyously animated rather than merely alive.10
One story in the anthology struck me deeply, History of the New World by Adam Garnet Jones (Cree/Métis/Danish), in regards to the opportunity an apocalypse presents for new beginnings. In my last essay, I mentioned the sort of apocalyptic story in which Earth has become fully dystopian, and humanity is projected onto other planets and moons to either expand, or try again someplace new. In Jones’ story, an Earth ravaged by climate change has been designated a dying place by the world’s governments, who had long ago given up on saving the planet in favor of searching for new ones. Governments have become destabilized from massive riots. Resources are spread thin. Now that a livable planet has been found, a program has been put in place to relocate humans to colonies there. Cities, infrastructure, and power grids are all shutting down as humans prepare to leave. The world that Jones describes is violent, sad, and dystopian; but not too far off from the violence and horror we see today.
In the story, this new world is described as a mirror image, an identical twin of Earth with notable variances in cooler temperatures and oceanic currents. Here, we might reflect on the histories and contemporary situations of our Earth, in this time, as we read how scientists almost hungrily exalt the utopia of a pristine, untouched wilderness; a tabula rasa planet. The new world is home to animals, but no humans or human-like beings; no language, no systems of writing, no “history” at all. The colonial capitalist history of our time is clearly repeating, even in the way the planet is described as a “new world”. While throngs of people around the world have given up on the Earth and are setting their sights and hopes on the new planet, Indigenous People of Turtle Island, who have been rebuilding their languages, cultures, and lifeways for generations, are resolved to remain on Earth rather than abandon her. The main protagonist, Em, who is Cree, is also hesitant to go. Em’s partner Thora, who is white, is eager to leave; arguing fearfully that their daughter, Asêciwan, won’t survive. It’s here we see a rupture in perspectives on apocalypse—Thora’s fear comes from facing an apocalypse that hasn’t yet been experienced by white people; a fear of the end of the world. But Em, reflecting on the twin nature of Earth and the new planet thinks, “twins share a womb; they grow from the same mother”, and wonders about the implications. When an announcement pierces through the stream of glittering settlement propaganda to report that a prominent marine species has a language, and sends a message, Em is shaken to the core. They realize that humans are repeating a violent history of invasion, colonization, and displacement of the original inhabitants of a land that has been cruelly described as “empty of people”, when it never was. Thora brushes it off, stating they knew there were animals. Em pushes back, advocating for their personhood. Thora suggests maybe there will be treaties. Em doesn’t reply to this and thinks, “We could dig in. We could stay.”
I won’t give anything else away, but the day of departure arrives, and from there, the story subverts the relocation to new planets narrative. It unfolds into a beautiful and hopeful ending, suggestive of a future utopia with deep reflections for us to sink into about the possibilities of better futures and decolonization; the return of lands, sovereignty, and self-determination to Indigenous Peoples; and living in right relationship with each other and all beings on a healed and revitalized Earth.
Let’s return to another kind of story I mentioned last time, about apocalypses in which humanity must battle against ravenous bloodthirsty ghouls. Jeff Barnaby's 2019 film Blood Quantum is not science fiction; it doesn't take place in the future or on another world. It is solidly a horror film. But it’s also an apocalypse story, and within its apocalyptic horror framework is a form of speculative fiction as an alternative history, taking place in the past, in 1981. The story unfolds on the fictional Red Crow reservation, where an illness breaks out that turns white people and animals into zombies, but Indigenous people are immune. White people are no longer in control over what they have created for themselves—were they ever? And can they be trusted while in the throes of their first apocalypse? Indigenous protagonists are faced with deciding how to move forward together, whether or not to offer white survivors refuge, and what to do with the infected. Indigenous people now determine the rules, the outcomes, and the future; all while maintaining hope, community, and humanity; even if not offering forgiveness, even if without reconciliation.
Two main characters come forward in the story—Joseph, who is Mi’kmaq, and his pregnant girlfriend Charlie, who is white. They wonder if the baby will survive after they’re born—will the child be Indigenous enough to be immune? Blood quantum laws are a legal determination of tribal citizenship on the basis of fractions of Indigenous ancestry. The smaller the fraction, the greater the potential for exclusion of tribal status, which requires a specific measurement for enrollment. This makes them genocidal by design—if fully realized, a population of people pushed out of tribal enrollment would be the legislative eradication of a people.11 In this scenario, we wonder at what point a person—this unborn child—is no longer susceptible to the affliction. Rather than the eradication of Indigenousness, this blood quantum is about the disappearance of whiteness.
A zombie apocalypse is a great delivery, or catalyst, for these themes. If George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was a critique of war and racism, and the subsequent Dawn of the Dead a condemnation of capitalist consumer society, then Blood Quantum references and expands these critiques through the lens of decolonization and sovereignty, to subvert and abolish colonialism and white supremacy. It’s these narratives in Blood Quantum that strike me as somewhat related to Indigenous Futurism through Native apocalypse. Barnaby presents an unflinching portrayal of contemporary and historical realities, while also demonstrating the ways in which horrific circumstances might open up the possibility of new worlds, and create opportunities to establish—or return to—right ways of being in relationship to each other. To be clear, this conclusion is my own speculation. We never really know what the future holds for the people of Red Crow reservation in this story. Barnaby doesn’t tell us; he doesn’t conclude or resolve the question. It’s left open for us to reflect upon ourselves.
As stories featuring first and second apocalypses, both History of the New World and Blood Quantum invite viewers to step into as many layers of meaning and subtext as possible to reflect on our positionality within them, and what our futures might entail. Not all of the struggles and circumstances of our contemporary life are addressed, solved, or forgiven; but new ways of stepping forward are presented. And ultimately, the “reset” of humanity these stories suggest, in resistance to dystopia, are underscored as opportunities to establish intergenerational healing after great intergenerational harm, and for people to reconnect to each other and the land, and heal alongside the Earth as a whole.
I keep returning to the more revelatory meaning of the word “apocalypse”, in that it is an uncovering of something that has been buried; a disclosure. The apocalypse offers the chance to break free of the slippery sand of prescribed reality to find our footing on more solid ground. Who are we right now in our world? Positionality and impact, matters. Who do we need to become, if we want to be better people in our world—both now, and in the future? There’s an idea about moving backward to move forward that I’ve seen over and over again throughout the years12, and it resonates with me. I think a lot about this, myself. It seems more pressing and urgent than ever for us to understand the past—all parts of it, from global, to regional, to personal—and understand how the future depends on what is included in our knowledge of these pasts. What is left out of history, or our understanding of it, will be left out of our vision of the future. What we are severed from historically, and presently, will continue to be severed into perpetuity unless we find ways to reconnect ourselves to what—and whom—we’ve been torn away from. So for me, finding solid foundations, finding our footing, is about confronting these histories and realities head-on to carve out a new path together. Before we were severed from ancestral wisdom, before the advent of our contemporary systems and structures, relational knowledge rooted us for millennia. Embedded within our histories and stories, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are cultural practices and instructions based on how to honor life, living, and connectivity to each other and the land, and all beings. We choose how to move forward, and which stories to write—either we consign ourselves to prescribed narratives of death, and the elimination of all life; or we collectively write new futures lifting up life itself, and the support of it at all costs.
Further reading and viewing for those interested:
Blood Quantum Wikipedia page
Dawn of the Dead Wikipedia page
Demian DinéYazhi', WE LEFT THEM NOTHING, printed and co-designed by John Akira Harold, nun studios, 2021
Grace Dillon Wikipedia page
Jessica Wong, Blood Quantum's Indigenous actors totally get the zombie apocalypse, CBC News, September 2019
Night of the Living Dead Wikipedia page
Love After the End, An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, edited by Joshua Whitehead, Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, 2020
Never Whistle at Night, An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr, Vintage Books, New York, 2023
Patty Krawec, Walking backwards into the future, Fanon: the preface and introduction, Collecting My Thoughts (ghost.io), November 2, 2023
Scott Gordon, The colonial zombie whiplash of “Blood Quantum”, Tone Madison, October 2020
Sovereign Words: Indigenous Art, Curation, and Criticism, edited by Katya García-Antón, Office for Contemporary Art Norway/Valiz, Amsterdam, 2018
Walking the Clouds, An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, edited by Grace L. Dillon, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2012
Zombie apocalypse Wikipedia page
■ Final note: I’m no scholar or expert on the subject of either Afrofuturism or Indigenous Futurism, and I’m not Indigenous. I am a student; a curious and investigative person with a penchant for detecting patterns and throughlines. I’m referencing this topic because I think there’s a lot for the rest of us to learn from and take into consideration. It’s important to avoid being extractive—Donnelly addresses the way non-Indigenous scholars will, in their attempts towards decolonial work and centering Indigenous knowledges, imagine Indigenous futures in which they still have access to Indigenous thoughts, imaginations, and ways to survive the apocalypse; thus mining the future of Indigenous Peoples as much as the present. (Sovereign Words, pp 268) I certainly hope to avoid this. What interests me are the interconnections that I saw, and the differences, in the way different futures are presented and told according to worldview, life experience, histories, and culture. It is expressly avoiding the pitfalls of a limited white imagination that I hope to point at as the work for people identified as white, rather than extracting Indigenous wisdom to apply to ourselves; especially as original thought.
15% of my earnings in February 2024 will be sent to Paperbacks & Frybread, a really great Indigenous-owned bookshop. Go follow them on Instagram!
Grace Dillon, Imagining Indigenous Futurisms, from Walking the Clouds, An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, edited by Grace L. Dillon, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2012, pp 8-9
Ibid, Dillon, pp 9
Hannah Donnelly, Indigenous Futures and Sovereign Romanticisms, Belonging to a Place in Time, from Sovereign Words: Indigenous Art, Curation, and Criticism, edited by Katya García-Antón, Office for Contemporary Art Norway/Valiz, Amsterdam, 2018, pp 268-269
Ibid, Donnelly, pp 271
Ibid, Donnelly, pp 268-69
Ibid, Donnelly, pp 269
Ibid, Donnelly, pp 271
Ibid, Donnelly, pp 271
Joshua Whitehead, introduction to Love After the End, An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, edited by Joshua Whitehead, Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, 2020, pp 10
Ibid, Whitehead, pp 10-11
While not directly cited, these resources are provided here as references
Blood quantum, Wikipedia page
Indian Reorganization Act, Wikipedia page
Kat Chow, So What Exactly Is "Blood Quantum"?, Code Switch, NPR, 2018
Paul Spruhan, A Legal History of Blood Quantum in Federal Indian Law to 1935, South Dakota Law Review, Vol. 51, No. 1, 2006, Retrieved from SSN
I’m not citing Patty Krawec here but this is a passage I recently read that really hit home for me:
Patty Krawec, Walking backwards into the future, Fanon: the preface and introduction, Collecting My Thoughts (ghost.io), November 2, 2023
“Our view of the future is necessarily connected to the past, I’ve argued this for a while. It’s the foundational premise of my own book. The futures we imagine are rooted in the stories we have so the presence that people have in our future is limited by the stories we’ve heard about them, assuming that we heard of them at all. The Maori have a phrase: Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua: ‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’ It means that the past is part of the present and the future. It is not compartmentalized the way that the west so often does, talking about the past as if it has no contemporary meaning or relevance. Building walls, whether they are walls of concrete and steel along our borders and prisons, or walls of ideology controlling what and how we think, is a lot of work. So if we’re going to decolonize ourselves, our communities, or our nations, first we need to tear down those walls. We need to unforget.”